Once you have installed the program, right click on Google Talk on the taskbar and you will be able to see three new options- Normal Idle, Always Idle and Never Idle.

If you select ‘Always Idle’, then your Google Talk status will always be idle, similarly if you select ‘Never Idle’ you will be online all the time. If you would like to deactivate gAlwaysIdle, just select ‘Normal Idle’. Please note that this program does not work so well in Windows Vista for me.

To be frank, I don’t want my friends using this software and I wish someone could not develop a software to find the real status of a Google Talk user just like Buddy Spy for Yahoo! Messenger.

While there are many softwares available that teach you to type faster, the freeware that I liked the most so far was TypeFaster that teaches you how to touch-type and improve your typing speed.

This program has been designed to teach people to touch-type. Touch-typing is a skill that can be learnt with practice and perseverance. Touch-typing is a method of typing which uses 8 fingers and one thumb. Touchtypists do not have to look at the keyboard to find the keys they want to type.

When you first start TypeFaster, it introduces you to the software and gives you basic info like what are homekeys and which keys each of your finger should rest on. Once you are ready you can start the tutor.

TypeFaster even includes a 3D game to make learning to touch-type more interesting.

Speaking of games, here are some more that will help you improve your typing speed:

• QWERTY Warriors
• Typing Invaders
• 10 Finger BreakOut

You can find more typing games at freetypinggame.net and onlytypinggames.com

Do you know any other good softwares or games to help improve typing speed?

With Windows Media Player 11 installed, searching your entire music library just got better. Windows Media Player 11′s capable search modifiers can help you search your music effectively. For example, you can just narrow down to tracks from a particular artist by using the ‘Artist’ Search Modifier.

For example, Artist: Akon will search and list only the songs by Akon. Similarly, you can use the ‘Album’ operator to search for songs from a particular Album.

The useful Search Modifiers supported by Windows Media Player are here for your information:

Additionally, Windows Media Player 11 Search also supports search operators like OR, AND, NOT, “” (quotes)

For example, you can use quotes to return only the exact matches of your search term. Similarly, NOT can be used as an exclusion operator. With AND, you can get results that have ALL of your search terms.

Hope you enjoyed these Windows Media Player 11 Search Tips. Do you have anything to share with us?

It can also recover files moved to Recycle Bin after it has been emptied and if some program does not use Recycle Bin when deleting files, Handy Recovery can restore such files too.

Handy Recovery supports all Windows file systems for hard and floppy drives. It can also recover compressed and encrypted files on NTFS drives.

Features

The key features of Handy Recovery software include -

• FAT12/16/32, NTFS and NTFS 5 + EFS file systems support
• In-depth disk scanning for certain file types
• Option to create disk images for deferred recovery
• Shows probability of successful recovery for each file
• Recovers files from deleted and formatted partitions
• File filtering by name, mask, date and size
• Recovers files deleted without Recycle Bin
• Restores the structure of deleted folders
• Explorer-style disk content browser showing deleted files
• One-click filter button to show only the deleted files

Handy Recovery works on many Windows versions like 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 and even Vista operating system.

The bad part is that Handy Recovery is not freeware. It is priced at $39 for a single user license, but you can download a 30-day trial version. Please note that the evaluation version can recover only 1 file per day.

If you prefer freeware you can try the FreeUndelete Recovery Software which I wrote about last year.

Download LogonStudio for Windows XP

LogonStudio for Windows Vista

Stardock LogonStudio for Windows Vista also lets you create new logon screens from jpg, png and bmp images. You can download logon screens for Windows Vista from the LogonStudio Vista Gallery.

Note: LogonStudio for Windows Vista is currently in beta and available for Object Desktop customers only. However you can download an older beta version from here.

When you install and run this version, it will let you know that this beta version of LogonStudio Vista has expired and will not let you apply any new logon screens.

But you can run this version by changing your date to February 25th, 2007

The latest build is LogonStudio Vista BETA 0.70 b.006. Let me know if you manage to download it.

The new TuneUp Utilities 2007 will make Windows even faster, more comfortable and more secure than ever. Configuring the system, making backups and performing maintenance can be easily carried out using the intuitive user interface – all easily done in one program at a single glance.

TuneUp Utilities 2007 is one of my favorite softwares but was not Vista compatible until now.

Vista Transformation Pack will replace many of the resources in Windows XP/Windows Server 2003.

It can change such things as:

• Boot screen
• Welcome Screen / Logon Screen
• New msstyles files (visual styles)
• New desktop and file icons
• New toolbar icons
• Progress Dialogs
• Sounds scheme
• System Tray icons
• New Wallpapers
• Windows Media Player Skins
• And much more

I tried the Vista Transformation Pack before getting my hands on Windows Vista Ultimate and I was really satisfied with it. It gave me an idea of how Windows Vista will look like even before it was released.

Download Vista Transformation Pack

It quickly scans the files and compares them based on Byte for Byte Comparison, which ensures 100% accuracy. You can then choose to delete all the selected duplicate files.

Duplicate File Finder does not contain any adware or spyware and is Vista compatible and best of all it is small and free.

Download Duplicate File Finder

We install so many software, most of the time we don’t know what it’s doing in the background. Many applications are resource eaters. They run faster but then they don’t let other applications run the same way. What do you then, un-install it right? But your system will still run slow.

If we take a closer look, its more important to understand how Operating systems and applications run. Every installation does something, when an application runs it creates temporary files but they don’t remove it most of the time. Your system gets older and your file ages. Even after uninstall, applications don’t remove everything. Thus you system will remain slow.

So what you do? Reinstall the whole operating system? But think again, what if something can fix those old files, remove temporary files, fix your registry and make your PC fast again.

I give you System Mechanic’s review and how to keep your system running smooth days after days.

What is System Mechanic?

It’s a software which can optimize your system to make it run smooth. It can fix your registry and remove dead links. It can even delete unnecessary files so you won’t lose valuable hard disk space. System Mechanic can fix PC problems, boost performance, eliminate crashes, defend against spyware, viruses, and hacker threats, and much more.

Features

• One button click analysis to get to know all current problems of your system.
• Tells you about security and performance of your system.
• List out the problems and tells you how much time it will take to fix it.
• Undo for every step you have done so you can roll back in case of any problem.
• Both manual and auto options for different options. So if you are sure what it does you can just ask it do every time for you.
• Repair hard drive errors that cause computer crashes and lock-ups
• Recover Deleted data.
• One click to complete PC optimization.
• Quick links to increase performance, enhance protection, free drive space and others.

Here are some images which are self explanatory

Advantage and Disadvantage

Positives

• Easy User interface.
• Really works, It does optimize system performance.
• Undo of everything is a good feature.
• Quick links are very powerful.
• Online support is also available.
• IntelliStatus give you things like system and memory details in one shot.

Negatives

• It’s a resource eater. So if you are running this application in ram less then 256 MB, it might slow down the system.
• Though its simple to use but there are lot of things which can be configures if you want to. But if you are not sure leave the default configuration and use the software as it is.

System Requirements

• PC running Microsoft Windows 98, Me, 2000, XP, or Vista
• CD or DVD drive (for CD installation)
• 256 MB of RAM
• 60 MB of available hard disk space
• Internet Explorer 6.0 or later
• Internet connection required

I would give 4 out of 5 to this Vista compatible software.

If your system is really performing slow, try out this software. There is a 30 days trial version available free. Download System Mechanic here.

Still got any doubts? Feel free to ask.

This post has been submitted by Ashish Mohta from Technospot.net. You can subscribe to his RSS feed here.

CCleaner also has a built-in Registry cleaner which helps to check and fix problems in your registry.

Other tools CCleaner provides are an Uninstall manager that lets you easily uninstall any program from your PC and a Startup manager that lets you easily remove programs that are set to run when your computer starts.

Cleans the following:

• Internet Explorer: Temporary files, URL history, cookies, Autocomplete form history, index.dat.
• Firefox: Temporary files, URL history, cookies, download history.
• Windows: Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
• Registry
• Advanced cleaner to remove unused and old entries, including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more… also comes with a comprehensive backup feature.
• Third-party applications: Removes temp files and recent file lists (MRUs) from many apps including Opera, Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar, Netscape, MS Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and many more…

CCleaner is 100% free and does not contain any Spyware, Adware or Viruses.

What I do not like about CCleaner is it’s interface, but the best part of this software is that it is small, fast and free! And CCleaner is also Vista compatible, unlike TuneUp Utilities 2007 which has still not released a Vista compatible version.