Dropbox is a new way to sync your files across multiple computers.

A YCombinator startup, Dropbox has been around since 2005, but just recently came out of private beta for all to use. After a simple installation, Dropbox allows you to sync folders privately among your own computers (and the web) or share folders with friends. They also have tools for sharing and viewing photos. Dropbox is cross-platform (OSX, Win and *nix), and works through firewalls. I’ve been using dropbox for over a year both at home and work, with no problems.

Hulu.com is a website for watching full length TV shows legally online.

It is a joint venture between NBC and News Corp. (Fox) which is very well implemented. It has a great deal of content, including full episodes of current hit TV shows such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, 30 Rock, The Office and many more. The speed at which the video starts is astounding. There is almost no pause between clicking on a video and when it starts. It is ad supported, but the ads are never more than 30 seconds long and often a show will play all the way through with only an initial ad. In some cases there are full episodes for an entire season of a show. This is a great addition to the series of programs that are available for watching television on the internet such as Joost, Sopcast, and TVUplayer. The vast amount of content is a large draw for this service. Another great feature is the collections that they have gathered. The Saturday Night Live digital shorts collection, SNL parody commercials and an impressively quick loading HD gallery of movie previews. There is also a section for last years Fiesta Bowl. This in itself is not new or innovative, but there is the option to watch a 3 hour video of the entire game OR to watch a 34 minute video of all the plays, but spliced into a fast paced interesting game.

X-Setup from Xteq Systems, is the “ultimate tool for tuning your system to perfection”.

It’s great software, with a lot a functions that could help you to fix some problems you have, or simply to make you operative system look smarter and cooler. It’s really simple to use, and you can either choose between the “wizard mode”, where you are guided step-by-step on what you would like to customize, and the “power user mode”, for expert computer users, who already know what to do. Here you have full access to all the options available: appearance, hardware, information, internet, network, program options, system and startup/shutdown options. The most useful of its tools is just the last one: startup/shutdown options. Everyone has had troubles trying to disable stupid software or applications that force your CPU to turn on full-working; but thanks to this, you will face even the most difficult situations: you can select which auto run programs must keep on working, and which ones should be disabled or even deleted, and you could do it in just a few clicks. Obviously, you can update it to the latest version, so that you could take advantage of all its potentialities and great functions. Your PC will be so grateful to you, it will look cooler and it will work as fast as if it were new!

A guide to overclocking your graphics card.

So you can’t seem to get Quake 4 to work at medium settings on a 1024×768 resolution at a playable FPS? Maybe overclocking your graphics card can give you that extra power required to do so. Overclocking is getting a part of you computer to run faster than it is supposed to. It is a simple process that can improve the performance of your computer. First things first, download ATItool.

Even if you have an nVidia GPU, I recommend this nifty little piece of software. Once installed, open up ATitool. You should immediately see some sliders and a temperature monitor. Overclocking your graphics card can be tricky, so proceed with caution. Increase the core value by 2-3 Mhz a time and every time you increase it, test it by clicking on “scan for artifacts. If your GPU temperature goes uncomfortably high, or if artifacts are detected, lower it. Find your maximum safe clock speed this way. Repeat the procedure for the memory clock. That’s it! You now have an overclocked GPU! I suggest you let ATitool scan for artifacts for at least an hour or two to make sure everything is fine. There are plenty of after market coolers available, if you do get one, it should really help you push your GPU a lot more!

There are many users that enjoy the power, control, and flexibility that Firefox brings.

I found a small and simple extension that, although it cannot be considered indispensable in any way, is quite obvious. And for us that have a wide screen, makes our monitor gain some vertical space. It is called Vertigo, playing on the idea of VERTical, as you will see. What it does is just move the tabs row at the top of the browsing window, and convert them to vertical tabs on a column on the left. Let it be said that it can be altered to display in the right hand side too. Install it… you can’t go wrong. And if I did, by suggesting it, you are only an uninstall away from not having lost anything by trying.

I like reading foreign literature, I often do it in my leisure and free time. Every now and then I meet a foreign word or a phrase with an unknown meaning and I need translation help.

Recently I found great translating software, it is called Babylon. It has the option to download different dictionaries from the web that give you different definitions of the word, there is even a thesaurus that helps you find synonyms, word with similar and with opposite meaning that can help you in writing. It also has a function to hear the pronunciation of the word. You can buy dictionaries from all over the world in different languages.

The programs has shortcuts that allow you only by using the ctrl button and a click of the mouse to underline the word and the word is immediately searched in the database and the translation is presented to you promptly.

It also works with whole texts. You can just enter the text and ask for a translation from one language to another. But I wouldn’t recommend this option, because the computer is unaware of when a certain meaning of the word should be used and is often prone to mistakes.