Get rid of flash player and adobe
Adobe has dominated our PC for a few years now with flash and adobe reader but they pop up all the time on startup which can be frustrating. If you install Google Chrome web browser you don’t need to have Flash player or Adobe Reader installed as chrome has built in plugins to handle both.
You can just go into your Add Remove programs (XP) Programs & Features (Vista or Win 7) in Control Panel once you have installed Crome and remove Flash player as you shouldn’t need it again.
To install Chrome as your default PDF rather than me re-inventing the wheel you can follow these simple instructions to setup Chrome as your default PDF viewer.
Google Chrome Shortcuts
Google Chrome is fast becoming one of the most used Web browsers recently overtaking firefox in the charts. I thought I would give you the shorcut keys to some of the most commonly used features.
Ctrl+Shift+N
Opens a new window in Chrome’s Incognito mode. This stops the browser storing details of the Websites you visit.
Ctrl+N
Opens a new window.
Ctrl+J
Brings up your download window showing a list of the files you have recently downloaded and lets you locate programs by clicking on “Show in folder”
Ctrl+O
Launches the Open dialogue box so you can open documents, images and other files for your hard disk in Chrome.
There are of course a lot more that you may find useful. If you are interensted in the complete list then visit the following link. http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/static.py?guide=25799&page=guide.cs&topic=28650
Free Graphics Editor
There are lot’s of graphic editors to choose from and lot’s of free ones around but the package to use largely depends on
what function you want to do. If you want to do some high end graphic manipulation and open and edit a large variety of file types then is the best place to start and maybe the best place to finish!
The user interface can take a bit of getting used to but for the things you can do with it and the fact that it’s free that is a small price to pay. They have lots of training scenarios on their website for you to work through and learn how the program works and to learn how to create some great graphics.
There are lot’s of other free programs that don’t do as much but may do enough for your needs however if you want a product that can cover a broad range of services then Gimp is the product for you.
Free secure Online password Storage
The name lastpass comes from the idea that once you set a master password on the account this is the last password you are ever going to need! Clever and also very true.
Never have to remember a password again. Like the sound of that then you need a free tool called lastpass. This is something I use religiously at BootUP PC on a daily basis and is simply amazing. A great idea and also very handy. This works much the same as the password remembering services you get inside webrowsers eg Internet Explorer and Firefox however this one is much better.
Firstly it stores a copy of all your passwords in a secure environment Online. So if you work from 2 computers all you have to do is install the plugin and you are ready to go. If yoru computer died or you had to re-install, don’t worry just re-install the plugin and your ready to go with all your saved passwords.
Along with that it also does lot’s of extra’s like having a form filler section and a password generator. It also has a great secure notes feature which again I probably use daily. Any note I have that I want to be secure and confidential I just pop it in there. This really is a handy tool and I urge anyone to give it a try as it really will make your life sooo much easier online.
Free Photo Sharing
There are many photo sharing applications. My personal favourite is Picasa which is free from Google. You can use it for organising, viewing, sharing or editing your photos. The editor is actually pretty good allowing you to get rid of red eye, crop and straighten photo’s along with many other tools.
The main benefit to Picasa is they give you 1gb of free storage for all your photos. For some of you that may not be enough storage but the price to upgrade with Google cheap anyway. $5 a year for 20gb! Once you have all your photo’s organised and inside Picasa you can choose to synchronise online which is basically a great way to backup and share photo’s with friends online.
It’s really simple to use and is a must for anyone looking for a way to backup and share their photo’s for free. It does however take a bit of work and requires some user input to make sure the right folders are synchronised etc. If you want an easier totally automatic way to backup your photo’s then see BootUP PC’s online backup system.
