CloudMagic delivered speedy Gmail searches in the past, but only in the Firefox and Chrome browsers. Now the free tool is more impressive than ever, offering searches of everything from Facebook and Dropbox to Box and AOL, and in more browsers than before.

The best news is it does all of this without impacting its performance. CloudMagic still delivers the fastest, most relevant search results I've seen yet.

CloudMagic is available as a browser extension for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and as an add-on for Internet Explorer. It's also available as a mobile app for the iPad, iPhone, and Android devices.

Once it's installed, CloudMagic appears as a simple search box on relevant pages; if you surf to a page that doesn't support CloudMagic, you don't see the box. You can move the search box around the page if it's in your way, and you can minimize it to a corner, too.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The line between Web apps and desktop applications grows ever blurrier. Chrome OS, for example, puts the browser front and center and makes it the core of an entire operating system. Also, in recent years simple smartphone apps have really come into their own, with millions of users and developers in two thriving ecosystems (iOS and Android). And now, it's the desktop's turn: Pokki is a free Windows application that tries to make Web apps as easy to use as desktop apps and as discoverable and fun to install as smartphone apps.

A desktop app store is not a new concept: Mac OS X has had one for a while, and so has Ubuntu Linux. Windows 8 has one as well, for Windows-8-style apps. But unlike the Windows 8 Store, Pokki works on existing versions of Windows.

Introduced in 2011, Pokki is still young, but it feels polished and fun to use. There are clear categories for Featured, Popular, and New apps. Applications are also categorized by type, such as productivity apps, games, health related apps, and so on. Each app has reviews and ratings, so you can see at a glance what other users thought about it.

Installed, Pokki apps feel like Windows, reimagined. They don't use the default Windows UI toolkit, so buttons and scrollbars seem different (and slick). Under the hood, they are Web apps: Pokki runs applications in a sandboxed instance of Chromium, the same engine that's behind Google's Chrome browser. Applications are written in HTML5, JavaScript, and other standard Web languages. This allows developers to leverage their existing Web development skills when creating desktop applications.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Chinese zodiac is thousands of years old, so what better decoration for your glossy, state-of the-art PC? The twelve zodiac animals make a stately parade across your Windows 7 desktop with the Chinese Zodiac Windows 7 Theme. PCWorld editor Kim Saccio-Kent selected these wallpapers from the many available at deviantART, an online community showcasing user-created art and photography.

Other deviantART images include the Chinese zodiac ox by KatVonB, the rabbit by Vajk, the Chinese dragon by orgastic, the horse by immanuel, the sheep by inoxorum, the monkey by SubterfugeMalaises, the rooster by Iceandsnow, and the dog by branka42.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If you're new to the indie game Botanicula, then this free Windows 7 themepack will serve as a visually splendid introduction to it. And if you've already played it…well, is that any reason to deprive yourself of the delightful visuals and quirky sounds that are such a big part of the game's charm? PCWorld has put together the Botanicula Windows 7 Theme to bring the distinctive feel of Botanicula to your desktop.

The wallpapers in this themepack give you a good feel for the game's eclectic spaces and inhabitants, from the ethereally beautiful domains of the enemy, to escapades on the moon and on glowing pastel branches, to encounters with giant tortoises and crabs, and worms hidden in vibrant green sprouts.

Fans will also appreciate the funny, original sound-scheme, which is a mélange of real voices saying "aaah," "hmmm," "heeheee," "hurrah"” and "mweemwawawawa" (whatever that one translates to).

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

It's that time of year when mosts of the Northern Hemisphere is starting to warm up to the idea of being outside. Going for a run in the fresh air sounds appealing, but don't lace up your shoes just yet. Spending a few more minutes at your computer (or in some cases, your mobile device) can help you choose the best route and make the most of your workout.

MapMyRUN

Read the full review and sign up for MapMyRUN (free).

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

ZoneAlarm is an old and trusted name in the field of computer security. Its free personal firewall has been popular for years, and now, it has decided to step up its game: Its latest product takes the solid foundation of the free firewall, and adds a free antivirus on top. With this move, ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall competes directly against Microsoft Security Essentials and the built-in Windows firewall. PCWorld has not yet tested this product's effectiveness, but I sat down with the software to evaluate its features.

Unfortunately, I can't say my first impression from ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall was entirely positive: I picked the detailed installer option to see what the defaults are, and was surprised to discover that ZoneAlarm wants to install a browser toolbar, replace my default homepage and search engine with ZoneAlarm-branded pages, and not provide me with an easy way to undo those changes (even though such a feature exists--the checkbox is disabled by default). These options are collected on one step of the setup process, making them easy to spot and disable. Having done so, I continued with the setup with no incident.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If you have something great to share with the world, there's no better place than the Web to do it. But you need more than a website; you need the perfect domain name and all the other things that optimize your site for search engines. These three programs and suites help you harness the power of search engine optimization to make your website a highly-ranked hit. SEO software doesn't come cheap, so research these well to see which best suits your business.

Market Samurai

Creating a money-making online venture is not a simple challenge. Market Samurai is a comprehensive suite of tools aimed at making the process easier by helping you track down lucrative keywords, buy the right domain for the job, and more.

Read the full review and download Market Samurai ($149, twelve-day free trial).

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Over the years, Lavasoft's Ad-Aware product line has made itself a name in the highly competitive anti-malware marketplace, and today's release of version 10 introduces a new UI, new pricing ($12 per year for Personal, $36 per year for Pro), and more features--and a new name--for the popular free edition. This blog item discusses only the new design and features. PCWorld has not tested yet tested Ad-Aware 10's effectiveness in fighting malware.

As part of the installation process, Ad-Aware suggests installing its browser toolbar, and switching your default homepage and search engine to Blekko. These are enabled by default, but you can opt out of them if you wish.

The browser toolbar is a small part of the Ad-Aware experience. Ad-Aware 10 introduces all-new UI: Gone is the compact bluish window with the radar-like Scan System icon, replaced by a more spacious window with dark accents and a greenish theme. The entire interface changed, and the home screen is now split into Basic Protection on the left (Antivirus & Antispyware, Real-Time Protection, Gaming Mode), and Advanced Protection on the right.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Many of us use our email inbox as a to-do list. Keeping that to-do list organized and easily accessible is a daunting task--especially with scores of new messages arriving daily. Each of these programs and services has its own spin on reminders.

Followup.cc

Followup.cc's email reminders make it easy to press snooze and push those reminders off a little longer. All four versions work with any type of email account, including Web-based email services such as Gmail and Hotmail, desktop clients like Outlook and Thunderbird, and on mobile phones. The reason Followup.cc works with any email service is because it's entirely email-based itself: To use it, you simply send an email message to a Followup.cc address. Then, Followup.cc emails you a reminder at the time you've determined.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Out-of-date drivers can keep devices form working properly. Manually updating drivers is a dull, tedious task easily forgotten. PCWorld recently reviewed several automatic driver update utilities that pledge to make the task less onerous. Some of these programs (particularly the free and demo versions) identify driver updates for you. The full-featured, more expensive ones will update them as well. We show you which programs are worth the download, and which you should give a miss.

Driver Reviver

Like its rival Perfect Updater, ReviverSoft's Driver Reviver begins to scan your PC for out-of-date drivers as soon as you launch the app. I prefer the approach taken by another rival, DeviceDoctor.com's Device Doctor, which waits to begin scanning until you've manually started the process. But you can pause the scan, and in all other areas, both PerfectUpdater and Driver Reviver drastically outperform Device Doctor.

Read the full review and download Driver Reviver ($30, free demo).

Device Doctor

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ever dream of designing three-dimensional models for games and animated movies? We examine two free options and a new version of a well-known professional 3-D modeling program. Each has its own niche and can produce excellent results--but if speedy creation is your goal, you may get what you pay for.

Blender

Using Blender to draw objects from scratch is pretty daunting, especially if you are trying to create something highly complex. You start from scratch, and--unless you happen to be an Autodesk Maya expert--should expect that you are going to have to read the manual, follow the tutorials, and do lots of homework. Lots. Unlike any 2D art or 3D design software I'm familiar with (Adobe Creative Suite, CorelDRAW, Xara Designer Pro, Poser 9, etc.), Blender seems to favor users who also are programmers or gamers, or at least engineering-inclined. But since Blender is entirely free, it's worth the effort if you are serious about 3D art and animation, whether amateur or pro, and have a lot of artistic talent and perseverance.

Read the full review and download Blender (free).

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The latest five products reviewed in PCWorld Downloads are a mixed bag. Some are excellent and some show the potential for excellence. Due to a closed beta and some steep prices, some are hard to obtain. Each of them is intriguing in its own way, and worth a look.

Carbonite

Carbonite still offers its basic Home storage plan, though it's been bumped from $55 to $59 per year. Carbonite Home offers unlimited storage, but no local backup--and by default, it will not automatically select video files and some other files nested within a folder. You are able to tunnel into the folder and select the files manually.

Read the full review and download Carbonite 5 ($59, 15-day free trial).

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

PCWorld's reviewers examine so much software for desktop and Web, it can be easy to miss some of the reviews. Our most recent finds: three mindmappers, a differential tool for coders, and a space empire-building game. For downloads and full reviews, follow the links.

TheBrain

What if you were able to put your entire brain into one computer program? Every thought, work-related or personal, with links to Web pages or files on your computer, and any additional notes you'd care to make. And what if you could then link those thoughts together, weaving them into free and complex associative patterns, much like an actual train of thought going through your head? That's what TheBrain ($249, 30-day free trial) tries to let you do.

--Erez Zukerman

MindMeister

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

At PCWorld, and especially at PCWorld.com Downloads, we love trying out software. October's breakout stars were utilities: Everything from video file conversion to software updates to running Android apps on a PC. We'd be happy to see productivity-enhancing programs like this any month of the year. To see all these downloads in one unranked chart, check out PCWorld Reviewers' Favorite Files: October 2011.

Other utilities don't so much do something new as make what you have work better. Update utilities make sure your software is up-to-date, minimizing security holes. We tried three different ones, but Raxco Software's PerfectUpdater ($30, free demo) delivered the best mix of accurate updates and interface usability.

The latest addition to the Freemake family of free software, Freemake Audio Converter, is easy to use and easy on the eye. With its wide array of supported audio files, it may replace fre:ac (formerly BonkEnc) on many a system.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Every Halloween, PCWorld editors dig up some free scares for your desktop. Favorite fonts, themes, and screensavers haunt us year after year...and this October, a few new ghouls rise to capture your imagination. PCWorld's latest Halloween collection includes a frightening font, Windows 7 themepacks, and two exclusive wallpapers from horror artist Chad Savage of Sinister Visions.

Last year, the four horror-inspired fonts of Savage's Sinister Visions Font Quartet leapt out at readers. They, and several other favorites from PCWorld's font and screensaver collection, remain poised for the jump scares. We've invited Gary Pullin's creepy Ghoulish font to this year's Halloween party. Inspired by classic horror movie posters, this display font can run the gamut from mild to macabre.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CloudMagic's lightning-fast search tool has impressed me since I reviewed a previous version over a year ago. I like its speed, I like its layout, and I like the feature added to its latest version: Twitter search.

CloudMagic then begins indexing your accounts, which can take some time if your accounts are sizable. It took several hours to index a Gmail account containing 7 years of messages, but only a few minutes to index a newer Twitter account. You can begin searching right away, but waiting until the indexing process is complete will deliver more accurate results.

The results that CloudMagic delivers are, indeed, excellent. CloudMagic says the latest version offers search that is up to 100 times faster than previous versions. While I can't verify that claim, I can say that CloudMagic is fast. Really fast. Super fast. However you want to describe it, know this: CloudMagic won't leave you waiting. Results appear in real-time.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Driver Reviver's name may be something of a tongue-twister, but using this $30 application is far easier than pronouncing it. This excellent utility offers a simple way to identify and update out-of-date drivers.

In fact, Driver Reviver is very similar to PerfectUpdater. Both are $30 apps that quickly scan your PC, and display the results in easy-to-view lists that make it easy to gauge the age of your drivers. And like PerfectUpdater, Driver Reviver offers a free scan of your PC: Once you want to go ahead an update your drivers, you have to spring for the full version of the apps.

Like PerfectUpdater, Driver Reviver handles the updating process seamlessly, from within the application, and doesn't force you to do it through an external Web site, like Device Doctor does.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

These days, I’m busy creating a new online store, a process that involves quite a bit of user interface design. To make matters more complicated, my colleagues are spread all over the globe, so we can’t just walk up to the office whiteboard and quickly flesh out ideas. It used to be that to show them a new UI layout, I had to draw it from scratch using CorelDRAW--and even MS Paint, just that one time. WireframeSketcher ($75, seven-day free trial with watermarks) changes that, and lets me present slicker UI designs much faster.

There is no dedicated user interface for customizing a table’s contents; instead, you are presented with a text area into which you must type the desired layout and contents, using specialized syntax. WireframeSketcher's syntax isn’t very complex, but doesn’t adhere to any widespread standard (it’s a form of CSV, basically). It is mentioned in the online manual, but the documentation mainly consists of a few quick examples. I was eventually able to get the table to show the information I wanted in the correct format, but it did require a bit of fiddling.

When you drag or resize widgets, guidelines automatically pop up when they line up with other widgets. This makes it very easy to create a polished design without having to keep using the dedicated alignment tools such as “center selection” (which are also available).

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Elder Scrolls, Chapter II: Daggerfall from Bethesda Softworks is the critically-acclaimed sequel to The Elder Scrolls: Arena, the very first game in the famous Elder Scrolls series of PC roleplaying games. Daggerfall expands and surpasses on every aspect of Arena’s gameplay, delivering you into a sprawling fantasy world teeming with villages, tombs and castles to explore. Playing Daggerfall on a modern PC can be jarring--the game was released in 1996 for MS-DOS--but once you get used to playing a game with outdated graphics and cumbersome controls, you’ll discover a well-written role-playing game that sucks you in for hours with a surprisingly exotic and engaging adventure. Of course since Daggerfall was released in 1996 you need a DOS emulator like DOSBox in order to get it running on a modern PC. For more information, check out our handy guide to playing Daggerfall on your Windows 7 PC.

Once you create a character, you’ll find yourself in a dank dungeon with a few pieces of shoddy equipment and a simple quest: Find out why the deceased King Lysandus is haunting his former kingdom, and lay the spectre to rest. And while you can spend hours unraveling the dark plot that surrounds the good king’s death to solve the mystery and save the kingdom (in one of six different endings), the real appeal of an open-world RPG like Daggerfall is having the freedom to blow off the main quest entirely and forge your own story in a world brimming with friends, foes, and fiends that dynamically respond to your actions. You move and explore the 3D world in real-time and engage enemies by using the mouse to swing a weapon or cast a spell, a complicated control scheme that takes some time to get used to.

What Daggerfall lacks in accessibility it more than makes up for with variety and freedom of choice: At one point you can choose to save a local villager from a rampaging band of werewolves, or join with the beasts and become a werewolf yourself. Sneaky skills such as lockpicking and pickpocketing allow budding vagabonds to get rich quick, but ply your thieving skills poorly and you’ll attract the ire of local guardsmen. Ply the skills exceptionally well and you might be invited to join the Thieves’ Guild, which opens up an entirely new branch of quests to complete and loot to collect--but brands you an enemy of rival guilds. The possibilities seem endless, and while this sort of open-ended gameplay inevitably leads all but the most focused players to spend hours wandering the world aimlessly, that’s not always a bad thing. In my experience, exploring all the nooks and crannies of a virtual world is half the fun of playing an expansive RPG like this.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Knights of the Chalice ($24, free demo) is a cheerfully old-school game in which blocky, two-dimensional characters wander a blocky, two-dimensional world in order to gut and eviscerate everything that moves and haul off as treasure everything that isn't nailed down. In some contexts, this would be the work of sociopathic brigands; in the world of role playing games, it's called "adventuring."

Knights Of The Chalice uses a highly modified and simplified form of the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 rules, thanks to the Open Game License. There are only 3 classes (Fighter, Wizard, Cleric), no skills, and only a handful of feats. What is carried over is the importance of tactical positioning. Flanking an enemy is important, moving past a foe will let him get a whack at you, and casting a spell next to an enemy--or in the sight of an enemy with a bow--is dangerous. (Eberron Online is a more robust implementation of the D&D rules set, but it is oriented towards the real-time play of an MMORPG, as well as having the traditional D&D levels broken up to allow more frequent rewards and advances.)

Let me expand--being a spellcaster is dangerous. Every fight I experienced in the full game followed this pattern:

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Canadian font designer Peter Rempel brings his love of handwritten letterforms to the screen with a free download of PR Uncial, a playful introduction to the art of calligraphic forms.

Hardworking copyists kept this simple style fashionable for centuries. In fact, as Rempel shows in this font design, Uncial never gone out of fashion. An early start drawing Uncial letterforms has inspired many of the designer’s works, including PR Viking, another PCWorld favorite.

PR Uncial is a history lesson in electronic typeforms. The base inspiration came from the cover of the 1978 Magnum edition of The Lord of the Rings. The designer’s first samples were made with an edged pen and chisel point marker on paper, then rebuilt on a Mac Classic using Mac Draw and inspiration from the Speedball Textbook for the straight strokes, curves and serifs. (Geek note: The Speedball textbook is very much in circulation today, available new and used for less than a hamburger in my city’s gourmet ghetto and worth every penny if you want to bring authenticity to your own font experiments.)

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The free version of Revo Uninstaller is well-known among PC technicians as a serious, no-nonsense uninstaller and system cleaner. Revo Uninstaller Pro ($39.25, 30-day free trial) takes the basic facilities the free version provides, and adds two key features that some users might be willing to pay for.

Both the free and Pro versions of Revo Uninstaller offer the most important functionality, a powerful “leftover scanner” that combs your computer looking for files and registry entries that software uninstallers did not fully remove. Uninstaller Pro takes this one step further, letting you do away with the application’s original installer.

Revo Uninstaller Pro does this by monitoring installations: It includes a button labelled “Install Programs.” When clicked, it prompts you for any application you wish to install. It then pops up a toolbar on your screen, and runs the application’s installer. As you work through the installer’s sequence of Next-Next-Next buttons, Uninstaller Pro logs every change made to your file system and registry.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

4Shared is more than just a virtual drive for storing your digital content. And it's more than just a service for sharing that content with friends and family. 4Shared (free) accomplishes both of these tasks, but with its browser-based sharing of audio and video, it also does more than that.

Let's face it. While icons are pretty, know no language barriers, and are easily recognizable once you're familiar with them-- they're limited in the amount of information they can convey. E.g., you have five Microsoft Word documents on your desktop and you used anything resembling a decent description in naming them --the icons are exactly the same and only part of the file name is visible. Until you click on them, you can't know which is which. If you'd like a more word-oriented, quicker-to-recognize view of your documents, folders, and programs you need Easy Desktop 9.0 ($30, 15-day free trial).

To define a launch button, simply drag the file, folder, or application icon from the Desktop or Star Menu to the launch button you wish to launch it from. You can edit the launch name, as well as various startup parameters such as whether the program runs normally, full-screen or minimized. You may also arrange the launch buttons as you wish. For instance, all programs in one column or on one page, all documents on another, etc.

Beyond launch buttons, Easy Desktop 9.0 provides access to virtually everything in the Windows Control Panel (Network Connections, Display Settings, etc.) and Windows Explorer (drives, my documents, etc.) via a toolbar at the top of the main window. You may also reboot or shut down Windows from the toolbar. The main window stretches and the size of the text on the launch buttons changes to accommodate. You won't want to make the Window too small.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Carrara ($150, buy-only) is a powerful and--dare I say--fun application for creating detailed three-dimensional content and animations. It breaks the various stages of the modeling and creation process into “rooms,” each allowing you to focus on a different task with its own custom tools.

The Model room lets you dig into any object in your scene and add detail or change its basic shape. Yes--you impact object shapes both in the Model and Assemble rooms, which can be slightly confusing when you’re just getting the hang of Carrara.

Not that beginning to use Carrara is difficult: Bundled with Carrara is a 775-page PDF manual, with lots of details and illustrations. The manual is written clearly and laid out for easy reference, and is one of the best parts of using Carrara. Out of the thirty-odd hours I spent evaluating Carrara, I would say at least ten were spent with the manual or watching videos showing how to use different parts of Carrara. For the videos, I only had to check CarraraCafé or to search YouTube for things like “Carrara modeling.” There is lots of online content, some of which is quite helpful.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Freemake Video Converter (and its sister product, Freemake Video Downloader) are products I use regularly, because they do specific things very well. In the case of Freemake Video Converter, that thing is converting videos from one format to another quickly and easily. The fact that it's free doesn't hurt, either. There aren’t even any ads, popups or watermarks.

Even since version 2.2, Freemake claims greater accuracy, speed and stability, thanks to DirectX video acceleration technology. An eleven-minute MP4 home video, converted to MKV, took 8 minutes–it’s difficult to tell if this was noticeably faster than the last version.

Freemake Video Converter also shares some features with the aforementioned Freemake Video Downloader, which is the ability to paste a URL from numerous sources, such as YouTube. The app will then automatically pull the video from there and convert it into any offline format. Handy, that. (Note that although previous versions, reviewed here, supported downloading from popular video site Hulu, new security on Hulu's site currently disables video downloaders from accessing its content.)

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Avadon: The Black Fortress ($20, free demo) from Spiderweb Games continues that company's tradition of large-scale, top-down (Ultima-style), story-rich CRPGs. In Avadon: The Black Fortress, you play a newly chosen "Hand" of Avadon, a kingdom which has united (or perhaps, oppressed) neighboring nations in a treaty known as the Pact. As you play, you learn more about the world and its history, and slowly uncover a web of mysteries. Oh, and you kill monsters. Lots of monsters. And rummage through every trash heap, desk, and chest you can find in a mad pursuit of any loot you can use or sell.

Avadon is turn-based. When not in combat, you simply click to move, and your party follows you. Once combat begins, each character moves or acts individually, and tactics start to matter. Enemies often swarm at you from many directions, and you cannot casually run by or away from enemies. You have a range of special attacks and powers, increasing as you go up in level (much like the talent trees in Diablo II and many MMORPGs, such as World of Warcraft), but these consume resources that regenerate slowly. Further, they can be used only infrequently--it may take 10 turns for a power to recharge--so there's a real resource management factor to fights. Knowing when to use your powers for maximum effect is critical; you cannot simply spam your best attack over and over.

As you explore Avadon and deal with the various NPCs, you learn more about the world and about the government you've sworn to serve, and some of it isn't pretty. There are many places where you can make choices about whether to accept a quest, to help someone or not, to ask an impertinent question or take a risk on someone's honesty, and your choices will directly influence how the rest of the game progresses; to see what might have been if you'd chosen differently, you'll need to go back to a prior save and make a different choice.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Internet is a great place to find recipes. Start with a search engine, and a few clicks later, you can find almost any recipe using any ingredient possible. But if you cook a lot and have built up a store of recipes, a strong, flexible database program can be very useful for finding and accessing favorite recipes quickly and easily. BigOven ($16/year, limited demo) is an easy-to-use and powerful database that lets you organize recipes and find them in a flash.

You access all of these functions via buttons on the main page of BigOven, which makes the interface seem crowded at first. But once you’ve sifted through the many functions to find the ones you want to use and the ones you don’t, this design makes navigating, choosing and printing recipes as quick as it can be. Everything has been pared down to fewest clicks possible. The quickness and ease is what makes BigOven so powerful.

In addition to the standard functions, such as find, edit, print, and share, you can create a shopping list from a recipe, add the recipe to the calendar to create meal plans, post a recipe to BigOven’s website, and put together a nutritional profile. The Pro version will allow you to access the nutritional info and grocery lists from its free mobile applications.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Working with multiple monitors can really boost productivity, but it also presents a number of unique challenges. For example, not everyone likes to have the same wallpaper on all monitors, or even the same screensaver. Some people also use different wallpapers or themes to color-code their desktops. DisplayFusion Pro ($25, 30-day free trial) lets you assign per-monitor wallpapers and screensavers, but that’s just the beginning.

When my girlfriend started using multiple monitors last month, she was surprised to discover that the Windows taskbar doesn’t span monitors, but it shows only on the primary monitor. DisplayFusion Pro can correct this by adding a taskbar to each “extra” monitor. The extra taskbar looks just like the native Windows one, but has a different context menu. You can have it show icons only for windows on that monitor, or for all currently running applications. If you move your “real” taskbar to a different edge of the screen, DisplayFusion automatically moves the extra taskbar to the corresponding edge on its own monitor, so all screens always look alike.

DisplayFusion Pro’s wallpaper management tools are powerful enough to warrant their own configuration interface, separate from the main Settings dialog. They rival John’s Wallpaper Switcher, which is saying something. You can set different wallpaper for each monitor, or span a single image across all monitors. DisplayFusion can show a random image out of a collection stored on a local hard drive, but it can also grab images from Flickr and VladStudio. It has a dedicated interface for each of these websites; for example, the Flicker interface lets you specify search keywords and specific Flickr groups you’d like to poll for images.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If you’re still using Windows XP or Windows Vista, you may have seen friends or coworkers snapping windows around with Windows 7’s newfangled hotkeys, and longed for the same functionality for your aging system. AquaSnap (free) delivers this, and more.

If accurate window snapping is all you need, you may want to try out another free utility called WinSplit Revolution. WSR supports fine-grained control over the position and size of each of your windows, as well as the hotkeys used to place them.

AquaSnap has a few more tricks up its sleeves, such as a feature called “AquaShake,” which is supposed to be an improved version of the Windows 7 Aero Shake. Aero Shake lets you grab a window’s title bar and “shake” it so that all other windows are minimized. AquaShake lets you do the same, but you can also use it to make the window semi-transparent and pin it so it stays always on top. In its default configuration, AquaShake was a bit too enthusiastic: I was innocently trying to move a window somewhere on my screen, when it decided I was “shaking” it and made it transparent. This may vary according to your input device and caffeine consumption. Fortunately, the sensitivity can be customized, to reduce the number of false positives.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here