Computer Tips and Guides

Archive for December 8th, 2009

Networks Lights Turns Your Keyboard LEDs Into Activity Indicators

Windows only: You squeeze every bit of customization and productivity out of your computer, why let those lazy keyboard LEDs sit idle? Put them to work as network activity indicators.

Network Lights is a tiny application that turns the NumLock and ScrollLock keyboard indicators into incoming and outgoing network traffic indicators. Check out our video here to see the lights in action. The video starts with some simple browsing—we were looking for a ..read more

Mark the Spot Lets You Tell AT&T Exactly Where Your iPhone Crapped Out

iPhone: Say what you will about the iPhone as a device, but if there’s one consistent weak spot for U.S. users (particularly in cities like New York), it’s AT&T’s service—specifically frequent dropped calls. Mark the Spot quickly reports your problems.

The app is a breeze to use. Whenever you experience a dropped call, failed call, lack of coverage, data failure, or poor voice quality, just fire up the app, ..read more

CopyTrans Manager Organizes and Manages Your iPhone or iPod Without iTunes

Windows only: If you love your iPod but aren’t crazy about iTunes, CopyTrans Manager is a solid alternative that can add media to and organize media on your iPod, iPhone, and Palm Pre.

(Click the image above for a closer look.)

This nifty little app is compatible with all iPod models, iPhones (up to firmware 3.1), and also the Palm Pre. Use it to drag and drop media files to your device ..read more

Namebench Helps You Find the Fastest DNS Server for Your Computer

Windows/Mac/Linux: Last week Google announced a free DNS service designed to speed up your browsing, but just because Google wants to be fast doesn’t actually mean they’re the best option for you. Namebench finds the fastest DNS server for your connection.

After you download and fire up namebench, just click the Start Benchmark button to test out a handful of free public DNS services, from Google Public DNS to OpenDNS to ..read more

My Weekly Browsing Schedule Opens Specific Pages Based on Day and Time

Firefox: One of great things about computers is how excellent they are at remembering things for you. Leverage that trait to your advantage with My Weekly Browsing Schedule to have Firefox remember what sites you visit and when.

My Weekly Browsing Schedule allows you to set up a schedule for your browsing patterns. Check your bank account every Monday morning? Start every day with the same three web sites? Like ..read more