If you want to enjoy great films from yesteryear, then head to Classic Cinema Online. This site features hundreds of old films from the silent era, the Golden Age of Hollywood and beyond, neatly categorised into genres such as comedy, drama, romance, sci-fi and westerns.

As you’d expect from such old material, the quality varies and the site can be slow to load. But we like the options to share videos on social networks and to post comments and requests on the blog.

You can also view short films and old newsreels.

Sample films: Alfred Hitchcock’s The Ring, Zorro’s Black Whip

Site: www.classiccinemaonline.com

STORAGE

If, like us, you’re an enthusiastic email user and incorrigible hoarder, it’s possible to accumulate at least 1GB of messages in a year if you don’t delete anything. So we like the fact that Hotmail starts you off with 5GB and then increases the space available to store your emails as you need it.

Gmail now offers 7GB and claims to be “adding more space as fact as we can” but Hotmail now also has the advantage of integration with SkyDrive. This gives you 25GB of online storage free of charge – very useful for large attachments.

HOTMAIL WINNER (Round 2)

• Round 1 of Gmail vs Hotmail – Getting Starded
• Round 3 of Gmail vs Hotmail – Features
• Round 4 of Gmail vs Hotmail – Performance
• Last Round of Gmail vs Hotmail – Extra Services

Picasa 3

Primarily a photo organiser Picasa also has some useful editing tools.

The emphasis is on ease of use, so the tools are kept to the basics. Crop and straighten functions are joined by the unlikely sounding I’m Feeling Lucky auto-adjustment tool.

Pick of the bunch is the red-eye reduction tool, which automatically detects and fixes affected eyes

 

IrfanView 4.27

With its installation file at just 1.3MB IrfanView is both small and fast. It comes with basic image-editing tools, but the lack of advanced features will disappoint those looking for mode control.

That said, the fact it can handle well over 50 different image formats makes it perfect for opening those files that other programs turn their noses up at

Photoscape 3.5

Photoscape doesn’t have the most user-friendly interface and some tools are tricky to find, but it does offer several useful features.

The batch-editing tool lets you apply filters and perform tweaks on a collection of images in one fell swoop, while a dedicated animated GIF editor is also on hand.

It won’t suit those who want advanced editing features though

This is a codec issue. Codecs are used to encode and/or decode the digital data stream and if you don’t have the right one installed Windows won’t be able to play it.

To solve the problem you just need to download a pack that contains all the commonly used codecs. Try the K-Lite Codec Pack from Codecs.com .

There are three versions available (all free) – Full, Standard and Basic

If you like to schedule your downloading or system scanning for the end of the day, you can ask this tool to shut down your computer once everything has completed.

Shutdown Timer can also be used to perform other tasks, such as opening a file running a program when certain pre-set conditions have been met

Shutdown Timer

GETTING STARTED

Registering with Hotmail is very straightforward and gives you a Windows Live ID you can use with integrated services such as Messenger and Office Web Apps.

We liked the informative welcome email that contains links for importing contacts, reading messages from your other accounts and customising your Hotmail views.

However, we prefer the way Gmail makes your email address your means of logging in to all other Google products and services via an even simpler sign-up form. Both services make sending and replying to emails easy, but overall we prefer Gmail’s buttons for tasks such as sending and deleting rather than Hotmail’s links, which aren’t prominent enough.

GMAIL WINNER (Round 1)

• Round 2 of Gmail vs Hotmail – Storage
• Round 3 of Gmail vs Hotmail – Features
• Round 4 of Gmail vs Hotmail – Performance
• Last Round of Gmail vs Hotmail – Extra Services

Comodo Firewall, which has won several industry awards, powerfully secures your system against malicious intrusions and lets you install the program, you can choose which features you want – just the firewall basics, or with added optimum or maximum defence.

Version 4.1 also now includes a sandbox that lets you run dubious programs without risk.

Comodo Firewall 4.1

IZArc

This powerful archiving tool covers a huge range of compression formats and is very straightforward to use. IZArc lets you repair broken archives, password protect compressed files and scan archives using your anti-virus software.

ExtractNow

ExtractNow lets you extract multiple archives quickly and easily. Simply drag and drop compressed files into the main program window or right-click them in Window Explorer.

7-Zip

7-Zip supports 25 file formats, although only three can be used to compress (ZIP, 7Z and TAR). Its 256-bit encryption keeps files secure and archives can be split to share by email or burn to disc.

Chess Free is a beautifully designed chess game that lets you play against a real opponent as well as a virtual one on your iPhone or iPad with various degrees of difficulty.

You can even play against the clock if you like, which is a great way to improve your chess skills or just pass the time

Site: Chess Free

Google has launched a tool that lets you make phone calls to any number from within your Gmail Inbox.

Gmail already has a video and voice chat function that lets Gmail users speak to each other online. The new call function means members can now call any phone even if the other person isn’t online.

Gmail gives you $0.10 of free credit to start with. You can top this up with your credit or debit card.

This Desktop application provides a smart way of discovering and reading Google Books. GooReading sports a polished interface not a million miles away from Apple’s iBooks, with a bookshelf to store the publications on.

When you run the program the virtual shelves will be bare but it’s easy to add something to read. Just enter a keyword or a Google Book ID and GooReader will run a search and display any matching books or magazines.

Titles with a green bookmark can be read, while any with a read bookmark are just for show and aren’t yet available to read. Yellow bookmarked titles ca be partially read.

GooReader does offer a tick box that lets you restrict your search to books you can read in full.

Snow Transformation Pack turns Windows 7 or Vista into a convincing Mac OS X Snow Leopard clone.

This easy-to-install software gives your Microsoft OS a total Apple makeover, replacing all the standard graphical features, including the welcome screen, wallpapers, screensavers and icons, and adding a dock.

The end result is impressively convincing and the good news is all your favourite Windows 7 functions, including Jump Lists and Taskbar thumbnail previews, will continue to work as normal.

AVG’s free anti-virus software has been safeguarding PCs around the world for years. and gets better and better with each release. The latest version offers real-time, on-demand and scheduled protection against viruses and spyware, and has a LinkScanner feature that protects you from malicious websites.

The interface is intuitive and, while it’s easy enough for beginners to master, there are several advanced features available too

Site: www.free.avg.com

If Picasa doesn’t recognise your phone or digital camera to let you import photos directly, try copying them from the device to a folder in your Pictures or My Pictures folder instead.

Picasa will automatically detect these pictures when it scans for new files and add them to your collection.

Alternatively, you could try running the Import troubleshooter in the ‘Fix a problem’ section of Picasa’s online Help Center

You can try reinstalling Reader, or run it and go to Edit > Preferences > Internet and put a tick next to ‘Display PDF in browser’. If the option is already ticked, deselect and then reselect it.

If you use Firefox, go to Tools Options, click the Applications tab and make sure Reader is selected for PDF documents.

In Internet Explorer go to Tools > Manage Add-ons and make sure Adobe PDF Link Helper is enabled

Alien Swarm is a sizeable squad-based shooter from Valve (the company behind Half.Life). The aim of the game is to hunt down and kill waves of aliens. You can find and join games online. or create your own and populate them with friends or other players from the internet. You can have up to four team members at a time, and there are four classes and eight different characters to choose from. If you don’t want to play online, there’s a useful practice mode in which the other team members are controlled by the computer.

You’ll need to have the gaming platform Steam running to download the game, but you can get this from the site for free

Whether you’re running on PC or an office full of them, the new version of Windows could make your computing life more productive – and more fun.

WINDOWS 7 is the operating system everyone hoped Vista would be. It irons out the problems of its predecessor, it’s easier to use, and it works more efficiently. And it’s now available both with new PCs and as an upgrade.

Before you take the plunge, you’ll want to know exactly what Windows 7 has to offer and the best way to get it. We aim to answer those questions in detail in this guide.

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WHAT’S YOUR SIZE?

Windows Vista came in quite a few editions, which made it tricky to identify the one best suited to your needs. With Windows 7 your choice is simpler. There are just three main editions – Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate – plus a stripped–down Starter Edition, which will only be sold pre-installed on netbooks.

We look at exactly what’s in each edition in chapter 5. As you’d expect, more features are added as you go up the ladder, and a crucial point to note is that none of the higher versions loses anything. For example, the Business edition of Vista lacked the Media Center home entertainment function, which was frustrating if you ever wanted to play media on a work machine. Windows 7 Professional does have Media Center, just like Home Premium and Ultimate.

Home Premium will be the best choice for most users. The Professional edition adds features for businnes networks, while Ultimate has everything (including BitLocker drive encryption to keep data confidential) for those who don’t mind paying extra to get the maximum functionality.

 

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

We’ve mentioned some of the ways in which Windows 7 improves on previous versions, but let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Here are our top 10 reasons to go for it.

1. It’ faster than Vista with the same hardware requirements
   Windows Vista offered lots of new features compared to XP, but it tended to slow down over time, and simple jobs such as installing an application could take ages. These problems have mostly been fixed. You’ll find Windows 7 doesn’t get so bogged down, and will generally start up and install programs as quickly as it did the first day.

If you’re not sure where to take your next holiday, you can get personalised recommendations from TripSay.

This lets you drag and drop rating icons – Best, Loved, Hated and ‘Wish to go’ – onto locations on a world ma. While the city options initially appear limited, you can zoom in to find more. When you’re done, TripSay displays your top five recommended travel destinations and suggests three place you should avoid.

MapQuest has lost ground to Google Maps but this relaunch is a big step in the right direction.

The new site has a smarter, more attractive interface, including a redesigned logo – with a large map of the UK on the right. Search for a place and click the pin on the map to get directions.

The really clever part, however, is the ability to view local information provided by other users and to add your own. This service is being offered in conjunction with Open Street Map and will give MapQuest a whole new level of usefulness as content is added 

Although it has a similar name to Microsoft’s product Security Essentials, Security Essentials 2010 is actually a rogue anti-spyware program.

To remove it, Download and run the free tool Rkill. This will temporarily disable the rogue software. Next, download Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, save it to your Desktop and rename it (just to be on the safe side). Install the software, go to the program directory and rename the file mbam.exe. Call it anything you like – this stage is just to stop the malware tampering with the program. Run Anti – Malware and then perform a full system scan to remove Security Essentials 2010

How come my Nintendo DS Lite connects to the internet at my friend’s house but not at mine?

The fact that you can connect wirelessly elsewhere suggests that the problem lies with your wireless set-up.The Service Set Identifier. or SSID, is used to announce the presence of your Wi-Fi network.

Want to browse photos on Facebook without having to click back and forth?

Then go to the experimental Slideshow app’s page and click the Activate Prototype button. Now visit any Facebook photo album, be it your own or somebody else’s, and you’ll see the app has added a Play/Stop button between the Previous and Next options.