PC Curb » Freeware Programs

10 Features of Google Chrome

admin — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:17:53 +0000

This is a heplful video from Google’s youtube page that outlines the key features of Google Chrome Beta and demonstrates how to use them.

New Google Browser in Beta – Chrome

admin — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:50:22 +0000

If you’ve been to Google’s homepage lately you would have heard of the new browser that they have released; Google Chrome. The beta version was released today (3rd sept). it will be interesting to see how much market share Google can grasp in compeition with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Features:

Blacklists for protection against phishing and malware.
Sandboxing for malware protection.
Plugins run in separate processes so if a website crashes it will only take down that tab and not the whole browser like in Firefox.
Fast website loading time.
A new tab page that makes regular browsing more efficient.

Transition from Firefox.

Firefox has developed a large market share among computer users after people were sick of the problems with Internet Explorer. As soon as you install Google Chrome you will notice all your bookmarks can be automatically imported from Firefox so you won’t have to re-add any. The two main differences I have noticed is you can’t open another tab when middle mouse clicking the home tab (which you can enable by Customise>Options>show home page button) and an inability to scroll down after clicking the scroll wheel on a mouse.

Example of the new tab page:

Viewing PC Curb in Google Chrome:

Download here.

Folding@Home Project

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:05:12 +0000

Some of you may have heard of ‘Folding@Home’ from it’s recent publicity with Playstation 3 and the release of new ATI graphics cards. If you haven’t; Folding@Home is a project started by Stanford university to better understand the process of protein folding. To help research into what proteins do, a distributed computing project has been set up to simulate this cycle.

Due to the fact so much processing power is required, the project is distributed across normal home computers opposed to only running on super computers. This allows maximum processing power. Anyone at home that wants to participate can download the free software application from here. With so many participants using their home PCs to fold, the combined processing speed is greater than the world’s fastest super computer.

The PC version utilizes the CPU to perform simulations of folding. To do this, the program automatically downloads a small file and will begin folding, frame by frame. Once you have completed a set number of frames the information will be sent back to Stanford and a new download will begin. This is all done in the background while you can be doing other things on your computer. If you like, you can set it so it only runs when your screensaver is active.

There is also a GPU version of the program that performs much faster than the CPU version as it is running on the graphics card and not restricted to the central processing unit(CPU). There is also a Playstation 3 client that folds while the game is not in use.

The protein simulations will help us to better understand the development of many diseases, including; Alzheimer’s disease sickle-cell disease (drepanocytosis), Parkinson’s disease, BSE (mad cow disease), cancer, Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis, osteogenesis imperfecta, alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency, and other aggregation-related diseases.

Here are screenshots of both the CPU and GPU versions of the program running.

Click to Enlarge.

Top 11 Free Programs and Ultilities

admin — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:06:43 +0000

Here is a list of the top 11 most popular and useful programs. They are all free to download, just click the programs’ name to be directed to a download page at File Hippo.

Top 11:

Firefox - Internet browser.

VLC - Media player.

K lite codec pack- Codecs.

CCleaner - Clears unused and temporary files.

MSN Messenger - Instant messenger.

AVG - Anti virus.

DVD Shrink - Copy and burn any DVD.

Spybot S&D – Malware, spyware and adware removal tool.

iTunes - Music playback and organization.

Winamp - Music playback and organization.

Speedfan - Monitor fan speed, cpu usage etc.

Filehippo, the best site for free software!

admin — Sun, 25 May 2008 01:08:16 +0000

Filehippo.com is a great resource of freeware software for everyone. Filehippo’s nice site layout allows easy navigation to the software that you need. They offer a great range of software from anti virus to peer to peer. This is great for the end user because they have a large variety to browse, plus they can download as much as they like and not have to pay a cent.

Another feature of the site is having a “Most Popular Downloads” page. This lets you know what is popular and gives you a chance to see what are people are downloading. Overall, this is a great resource for any kind of internet user.

http://www.filehippo.com

Torture Your PC Today!!!

admin — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:16:31 +0000

When i first heard about this, I thought what the hell? why would anyone want to put any added stress on their PC? After doing a little research and speaking with a few friends of mine, i gave it a go. Using Prime95 stress testing software, I was able to see how hard my PC runs. It was possible to adjust the settings for a mild run, up to torture level. This alllowed me to test my CPU’s cores, ram and ability to manage heat. If you want to try this out and see how hot your system is running, you can download Speed Fan. It is a great program to view your case temperature, CPU temperature, CPU fan speed etc. You can even try leaving the torture test running for awhile to heat your room up on a cold day, it works…

Prime95 and Speed fan can be downloaded for free from the following links:

Prime95

Speed fan

CPU-Z

Firefox 3.0 BETA 5

admin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:33:31 +0000

By now a large majority of internet users have veered away from using Internet Explorer because it is simply a crap browser. Firefox (the better alternative) has released a beta of it’s new browser. Even though it’s still in Beta (not a final release), most users say it still provides a smooth surfing experience,while still protecting your computer from viruses, spyware and pop-ups.

The new version features: easier navigation for everyone, better speed to execute regular expressions and users may navigate with keystrokes rather than mouse clicks.

Download from File Hippo here

Out with Microsoft Office and in with OpenOffice.org ??

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:31:23 +0000

For most word processing and presentation tasks, the majority of people would turn to Microsoft Office and the programs included with that to perform those tasks. The problem is that Office costs money.

For a long time Microsoft has held a very large market share of 95% in this industry and users have had no choice but the cough up the money. Now, people can use OpenOffice.org programs to achieve the same results and it’s all free.

Included programs with Open Office are: Writer , Calc, Impress, Base Draw, Math.

You will find all of these programs are very similar to Microsoft Office and can achieve the same results. Also some users will be happy with the wide range of supported Operating Systems including; Microsoft Windows, Linux, Solaris, BSD, OpenVMS, OS/2 and IRIX.