Free Useful Software Reviews

Reasons to Choose Hashnode over Medium, Dev.to and Blogger

2021-09-16T16:43:00.003+08:00

I have been researching these few days where should I start my software development blog. Medium is pretty good but the paywall is a big NO! I had my first post there, then I have decided to move it over to Hashnode.

So these are my reasons:

Sub-domain and custom own domain support. I can move to my own domain one day if I need to (although this is unlikely to happen)

Google Analytics and Google Search Console integration support. Blogger can do this too.

No paywall. I have been asking myself - would I pay to read? My answer is no. Yupe the paywall can be easily bypassed but not everyone knows this.

Blog looks professional and clean (similar to Medium). The rest do not seem so professional especially this one Blogger!

Custom navigation tab at my blog using Article Series. Blogger can do this too but not the others.

Email newsletter setup, Blogger can do this too.

Software development blog centric similar to Dev.to

This is also Github backup feature. It seems useful but when do I need this? Is it when Hashnode decides to shut down one day? I hope this won't happen. Perhaps this is the only drawback among the other Blogging platforms here which are more mature? The risk is there.

So here you go, this is my blog - Android Development Articles. I only have one post there and hopefully it will grow big one day. :)

Best Cleanup Tools for Windows - CCleaner

2015-12-24T07:56:00.000+08:00

One of the screw up things in windows is the registry key because it always keeps hanging around especially when you uninstall the software. So, I recently find out this CCleaner tool (free) to clean up the registry and it turns out to be pretty good and reliable.

Another thing that I use for this CCleaner tool is to remove all those useless applications that come by default with Windows 10. It improves my laptop performance significantly after that.

Unfortunately, you can NOT uninstall these applications with the "Add & Remove Programs" that you can find in the normal control panel. So the best method is to use the CCleaner tool to remove them.

Download free CCleaner here.

Meld is as Good as Araxis Merge but Free

2014-12-20T12:59:00.000+08:00

Since I moved back my role to be a software engineer about a year ago, I have started back to use a visual diff and merge tool and I found this free tool called "Meld" . It does exactly Araxis Merge can do and yet it is FREE.

In my very old post: Best Visual File Comparison Software, I mentioned Araxis Merge is the best and the only drawback is it is NOT free. Those free tools were not comparative at all but now I think Meld beats them all. The visual is good, merging is cool, you can compare directories and binary files as well. I can't think of any reasons why you won't like it.

Another good thing about Meld is it has the CVS version control comparison but it is only useful if you use CVS. It basically can do a diff to the version that you have in CVS.

Official website: Meldmerge.org

P/S: I haven't tried out the windows version as my development platform is in Linux. I"m using this tool every day. If you're using Linux, you can try to find it in you package installer if it is not installed by default. After you have installed, you can just run "meld" in your terminal.

Disable Antivirus in Android to Speed Up Performance

2014-08-03T10:58:00.000+08:00

I have been using Antivirus Security from AVG mobile for a while but I have decided to uninstall it for performance issue.

It has been with me many years and never caught an virus. So I decided to remove it especially I have not simply installed new applications for quite some time. The Android performance is too slow until it reaches it's unacceptable level. After I uninstall the Antivirus, my phone performance is no longer lag that badly.

Also the latest update from Clean Master, it has a feature called "Pre-installed apps" from App Manager. What you need to do, disable all unused applications that can be safely disabled. Previously I just listed all of them here but I don't think is complete. This new feature from Clean Master simply makes it easier!

Other thing you can do is Disable Animation in Android. Android is really running very slow especially running on non high end smart phone.

Hope that helps! Have a nice weekend!

Send Email to Your Future - FutureMe.Org

2014-05-04T07:47:00.002+08:00

I find this idea is pretty awesome, you can actually send email to your future with FutureMe.Org. Here is the sample that I write to myself!

It is very simple, you just fill them out like a normal email, choose when you want to deliver and click "Send to The Future!". The private and public's setting is to set whether you want to share your letter to the public. To see public letters from others, you can navigate to "Read Public Letters" tab. You will see many delivered future letters here. After that (the final step), you just need to click on the verification link that send to your email.

Not necessary you must send to yourself, you can also send to others. To do that, you must register first and login. Once you login, the steps are similar but you can now choose who you want to send your email to. I think you also can send to multiple emails with ";" as separator.

When the time comes, you will receive an email something like this.

This is something I think can be improved because it doesn't look like an email. I did this last year (as you can see) but it may have changed now. Nevertheless, this is still a very cool idea! Try it out!

P/S: Not just merely for fun, you can use this as a reflection tool for yourself or maybe send a letter to someone who you have no guts to tell her/him something now! :)

Listen Radio Online for Free - TuneIn Radio

2014-04-12T08:09:00.000+08:00

Recently I found this app which allows you listening to your hometown radio station online. This is very useful especially if you're in oversea like me and you miss you local radio station very much. You can use this app to browse to your favorite stations and listen them online.

You can also browse to other country's radio stations. Go to browse tab and choose "By Location". You don't need to be physically in that country to listen to their radios. This is really awesome!

However not all stations are working fine. For example, although I can find MY FM in Malaysia radio station, when I try to play it and it gives me this warning "The station is not available". So I guess it is still better than nothing. A lot of stations are still working good.

One more thing you need to be aware of is this app drains up your battery very fast if it runs in your background. I suggest if you don't listen to it, make sure you completely exit the application. Sometimes click on the back button may not work and it still runs in background (although there is no music or sound).

So, my suggestion is just go to "Menu Button" and select "Exit" to make sure it completely exits if you don't listen to it anymore.

Here is the application page in Google Play: TuneIn Radio

Use ScamAdviser to Check Domain Owner's Detail

2014-03-29T10:02:00.000+08:00

Besides using Google Page Rank to check for a website whether is reliable, I sometime also use WHOIS service to check the owner's detail who registers the domain.

You can use any type of WHOIS services available and I recently found this website - www.scamadviser.com that has a better user friendly of WHOIS service. It is similar to the normal WHOIS services with additional "Trust Rating" feature. It indicates whether this website is at high risk or safe but I think you still need to make your own judgement.

For example, I key in "softwaretracker.blogspot.com" to this website and I get the rating of 40%. Yes, not very good rating but is completely safe!!! :)

To see more detail reasons of such rating, you can click on the "Summary". You will see the notes mentioning "This is a generic (most likely free) website using the site blogspot.com". You can also look for the "Analysis Details" to provide further explanations which also include some recommendations to you. After that you make your own judgement whether this domain be trusted.

Well, I usually do these 2 steps to investigate a website. First step is Google Page Rank and second step is WHOIS but sometimes I skip the second step especially it has a high page rank (i.e. > 5). If a website has 0 page rank and indicate as high risk in ScamAdviser, it is probably a scam website. Good luck!

Related post:

Use PageRank to Detect Fraud Website

Clean Master Android Optimizer Review

2014-03-01T08:43:00.001+08:00

I have been using this clean master android optimizer tool for quite some time, it is time for me to write an review of it.

There are basically 4 main things that you can clean up your phone:

Junk Files
Memory Boost
Privacy
App Manager

I find the most 2 useful features are Junk Files and Privacy. Junk files is the most useful one because it helps me to clean up the left overs especially after I uninstall an app.

However I look at my phone recently and find that many empty directories are not being cleaned up. It does mention to clean up left over directories after an app is installed, I guess Clean Master is not smart enough then.

Privacy feature is good because I don't need to open up each app to clear my history. I can use this feature at once for all apps that I have.

Memory boost and App Manager are less useful in my opinion. In fact, Memory Boost is useless! The android should take care of your memory management already.

Assuming your phone runs out of memory very often, this memory boost is only temporary. What you really need to do is uninstall all those apps that run in the background when your phone starts. Running this memory boost won't fix your problem.

App Manager is also unnecessary because you can do that in your default App Manager in your phone. The only good thing in this tool is, it will tell you which app that you rarely use and suggest you to uninstall it.

Let's give it a try, see if it makes your phone faster. For me, I can't really feel the speed up. Keep in mind this tool also runs in background which also eats up memory. Having said so, it does the files clean up for you but manual clean up is still required.

You can download it here.

Small Space Clock Widget for Android

2014-02-16T08:18:00.000+08:00

The default clock widget in my phone uses up a lot spaces in the home screen especially you put in the weather information in. I'm not sure why they design such a lousy clock widget that eats up whole bunch of spaces. I really don't like it, the clock widget should just utilize the home screen as minimum as possible.

So I found this cool clock widget application - "Transparent Clock & Weather" by Droid27 and it meets exactly what I want.

See my phone screen below, you can see it fully utilizes the spaces on top of the screen. Cool, isn't it?

It has the weather information with the clock. If you click on the sun/moon (on the most right), it shows you the rest of the days. If you click on the clock (most left), it launches the default clock application in your phone where you can set alarm, timer, stopwatch and so on. If you click on the "degree Celsius" (middle), it updates the weather information immediately.

To set the refresh rate, go to Menu->Setting->Weather & location settings and look for the "Refresh Reriod setting. I"m setting it to 4 hours.

I'm using the "Use my location" to automatically use my location to display weather information, it works fine. Disable the "Use GPS location" if it is enabled because I don't think you will need this. You can play around with other settings, the default setting works fine too.

By the way, the widget is called "Transparent Clock (4x1) and you can find it in your Widgets tab to bring it to your home screen.

Try it out and you can download this Transparent Clock & Weather application here.

Best HandWallet Expense Manager for Android

2014-01-25T12:43:00.000+08:00

Since I have been migrating to Australia, tracking my expenses is now very crucial due to my income is longer that luxury that it used to be. So, I have started to search for the best and free expense manager in Android and I found this HandWallet is pretty awesome.

Few things I like about HandWallet as compared to the rest of the expense managers that I have tried:

You can track income, not just expense. Some expense manager applications out there only allow you to track expenses.

You can track by account (e.g. your saving account, your check account, and your cash). For instant, if you put in your expenses, you can choose which account to use. At the end of the day, you can check the account balance in your mobile verses the actual balance in your bank.

You can customize expenses categories. You can hide those are not needed and add your own category. This is extremely useful. To customize, go to Data Tab -> Categories. Play around with hide and add (new) options and you will know how to use it.

You can also view by graphic representative what is your expenses vs your income. You can also go into each category and look at the breakdown. It is up to you how deep you want to track (e.g. how many subcategories that you want to create).

I have been using this for few weeks and I find it pretty cool and useful. Cross-checking with my actual cash (in my wallet basically) and actual balance in my bank is extremely useful. You will be surprised that you will always miss some of your expenses tracking especially you're not getting used of tracking your expenses!

You can download Handwallet Expense Manager here. Happy spending & tracking!

Google Keep is the Best but Not Perfect

2013-10-20T11:28:00.000+08:00

I have been trying around many note taker applications for Android and finally I settle down with Google Keep.

The one that I like most before Google Keep was "FreeNote" and it is very cool for the fact that you can convert your handwriting into smaller fonts that fits into the smaller space unlike other note taker software, where the handwriting eats up most of the space. But too bad that in overall it is not user friendly enough and keep popping up message to request you go for a non-evaluation copy.

Then, I came across this Google Keep by Google of course and have started using it until today.

What I like about Google Keep?

It is synced with Google - you just need to go here: "https://drive.google.com/keep/" to retrieve all your notes. So technically, if you re-install or change phone, all your notes won't be lost.

Very user friendly - Easy to take note. You can also create a check list note which I find it very useful. Also, you an insert picture and add notes to it (I seldom use this anyway). The notes are also very easy to read because it will automatically re-size to bigger fonts if you have a short note.

Supported widget view - You can create a widget for it so you can view all your notes without open the Google Keep application. This is extremely useful if you want to have a quick look at your notes!

Archive your notes - I'm using this feature to backup my notes especially for notes that are important but seldom refer to. I keep those notes into Archive. You can still view all notes in Archive when you need to, it is just that it won't be shown by default.

Why Not Perfect?

No search function - Sometimes when your notes grow, you need to do a search but it doesn't have this feature. So you have to manually browse the notes to find it. Quite bad sometimes especially if you have plenty of notes. If Google can implement such feature into this Google Keep, that will make this application perfect!

[10/21/2013 - Update]: Thanks for the blog comment, I didn't notice the search icon (magnifying glass) at the upper right corner. I tested it and it works perfectly.

No Category or Label - To organize my notes, I need either category or label feature. No such thing can be done to organize your notes with Google Keep. Again, hopefully Google will implement it then it will make my notes much more organized.

In terms of priority, I would prefer the search function. Google, can you implement it?

[10/21/2013 - Update]: Sorry, the search function is already there. This Google Keep will be perfect if you can categorize your notes! :)

[11/15/2013 - Update]: Now I know why I said the search function is not there. I basically still can't search text within a note. I have a very lengthy note and it will be very hard for find what I look for if the search capability is not there.

You can download Google Keep here. Enjoy!

Disable Animations In Android for Better Performance

2013-07-10T16:07:00.000+08:00

Other than bunch of useless applications that you can disable (see my previous post here), I found that you can also disable animations in your Android phone. I feel that this make your phone runs even faster!

[Update: 03 August 2014]: Apparently the latest 4.2 Android update has disabled "Developer options" but you still can enable it by going to "About device" and click on the "Build number" multiple times. Sounds cool definitely from a developer perspective!

Steps

Go to Settings -> Developers Options
Turn OFF all animations (i.e. Window animation scale, Transition animation scale and Animator duration scale). The default is scale X1, you just need to turn it off.

Hope it helps!

Best Free Antivirus App for Android from AVG

2013-07-06T15:05:00.000+08:00

Antivirus application is important to your android mobile especially if you intent to install applications that from unknown source. Yes, I do sometimes. Similarly to desktop application, I have been trying it out the AVG antivirus for Android.

So far, it doesn't catch any virus at all. So I"m wondering if virus exists in Android? Maybe no? But one thing good is it manages to catch applications that have Adware which I hate most. It will be pop up the following once detected during the application install. You can either choose to Ignore or Uninstall it.

Yes, "Friends with Benefits" has Adware. Don't simply get benefits from friends! lol. I think they just do this recently because I"m getting more this kind of warning while trying to install applications (especially games) from GooglePlay and previously I rarely get any warning.

Personally, I think it is better to have an Anti-virus app in your mobile especially on open platform like Android. Still, sensitive information should not be stored in phone in my opinion. Assume the worst case that your phone gets stolen one day, your most important data still safe.

It is called "Antivirus Security - Free", you can download it here.

For settings, I just uncheck the following settings which I believe is pretty safe:

Safe Web Surfing - Useless and it makes your browsing slower.
Deep File Scann - Perhaps just do it first time will be enough.
Scan Text Messages - Can SMS do anything harm? I have no idea.

I only enable the "Enable PUP Detection" which I think is useful to detect any malware or adware during application install. This Antivirus also gives warning on your android settings if it allows unknown source and USB debugging (for Android development). I need both of them, thus I just ignore those threats.

P/S: By the way, the best here is just personal preference. I assume either you can use AVG or AVAST (which I haven't tried yet) will do for FREE and BEST antivirus application in Android.

Hide Private Photos and Videos in Android - Hide IT Pro

2013-06-20T10:22:00.003+08:00

This is a very useful application called "Hide IT Pro" and it allows you to hide your photos and videos in your Android phone. It is free and after you install it, the application is actually named as "Audio Manager". Yeah, you know why it is renamed but it does really function like a Audio Manager as a secondary function. You can set the volume for your devices with this application and it really works.

However, the main purpose of this application is to hide your private data including your pictures, videos, music, application and SMS as well. I only tried videos and pictures. It works perfectly! For hiding application, you need to root your device which I don't intend to. If you have rooted your device, probably is a good try. You know sometimes we don't want others to see what application we have installed! :)

This is main screen and to enter to the real function of this application, you need to click and hold the "Audio Manager". It will ask you for password for first-time setup and after that you need to enter the password to enter. It is 4-words password. :) After you enter, you will see this vault folders.

So each folder contains those files that you hide. To hide, just go inside this folder and press the "+" sign at the upper right corner and start choosing files that you want to hide. After hiding, this file can only be viewed by this application. You can create your own folders in this vault as well for better files organization.

You can also unhide these files buy clicking and holding the picture or video for example. Then choose unhide. It will ask you which destination folder you want to unhide your file to or you can choose the default one. The good thing about this application is you don't need to unhide to view your pictures or videos. You can view directly with this application without unhide it! :)

Anyway, this application is very user friendly and you shouldn't have problems to use it. Let's try it out yourself here.

P/S: I am hoping to see an application that allows you to hide apps without rooting your device. It seems like is not technical feasible at this point in time. :)

First 3D Badminton Android Game

2013-06-03T20:51:00.001+08:00

This game is called "Badminton League 3D" and probably is the first badminton Android game that I really enjoy playing it. It is really an awesome game and like real!

BUT what I hate is the Adware that comes together with it. This Adware is annoying because of the pop-up advertisement. I seriously hope the developer should not include them.

I tried to search again in GooglePlay and it seems like is no longer there anymore. Perhaps Google has removed it?

P/S: Not really playing games lately because can't find any good one. If you have any recommendations, let me know. :)

How to Make Android Phone Run Faster?

2013-05-03T19:29:00.003+08:00

It is very common after using your Android phone for quite sometimes, things get very slow. This is usually due to a lot applications and services are running at background and some are not even needed.

The obvious one is to uninstall unnecessary applications especially those that run services at the background. To know what services that run in the background, go to "Settings -> Applications Manager -> Running". For those unwanted applications, you should uninstall them or else it will make your phone lag like hell!

However, not all applications can be uninstalled especially you don't root your phone. The only thing that you can do is to disable them. To disable them, go to "Settings -> Applications Manager -> All" and you can disable the applications manually by clicking on the disable button.

So these are the list of applications that I disable and are tested safe to be removed. A lot of them are came with Samsung which I don't need them at all:

AllShare Play - I don't use this. Seems cool but not applicable to me.
Bubbles/Luminous Dots/Phase Beam/Photo Wall/Deep Sea - Either wallpaper live or screen saver which is not needed
ChatON - Useless chat program by Samsung where everyone now uses WhatsApp
ChocoEUKor/RoseEUKor/Helv Neue S - Special font and is not needed if you don't use it
Clock (digital/funky/modern) - There are many clock applications, I just choose the one that use to enabl and the rest just disable it
Dropbox - Somehow comes with Samsung and cannot be uninstalled
Dual clock(analog/digital) - Useless to me because world clock comes with the default clock program
Face Unlock - Cool but useless feature. I don't lock my phone with password also because I find it very troublesome and slow.
Favorite Apps/Contacts - Application widget which I don't use, running widget makes your phone by the way
Game Hub - GooglePlay serves the purpose
Google Search - This is widget which I don't use it because it wastes my home screen space.
Google Tex-to-Speech English - Rarely used, type is faster
Google+ - I use Facebook. :)
Group Cast - Another useless app by Samsung
Help/User Menu - I guess this is Samsung phone user guide
News Daemon(EUR)/Yahoo! Finance/News - Yahoo news widget. All end with EUR are from Yahoo which I rarely use
Personalize call sound - I don't need this, personal preference I guess
Picassa Uploaded - Not used in phone
S Memo - At first, I like it but it has text length limitation which is very annoying. Now I use Google Keep which I think is a lot more better.
S Suggest - All suggested applications somehow are not meaningful to me
S Voice - Cool and useless feature again because it lags.
Samsung Apps - Any useful Samsung Apps out there?
Samsung Backup/Backup Provider/Browser SynchAdapter/Calender SynchAdapter/Cloud Data Relay/Contact SynchAdapter/SMemo SynchAdapter - I backup everything with my Google account which makes this no longer is necessary.
Samsung Push Service - Used by Samsung chat program, ChatON which is not needed unless you use it
Samsung TTS - Text to speech recognition, useless to me again. I hate showing off program especially you can do it faster way.
Talk - Google talk ...
Talkback - Used by Google to send feedback which will slow down your phone
Weather Daemon/Widget/Widget Main/ Windy weather - Not really useful to me. If you rarely used like me, just disable it

After disable all these applications, I can feel that my phone are now run a lot faster. I can't tolerate lagging especially open a SMS for example. I always want to make my phone GUI's respond super fast!!!

Another thing that I did is to group all those applications Icons using folder. It not only help me organize things but improve on phone performance. You can give it a try too. I only have one single page for all my applications. I don't like the idea or having multiple pages of icons.

[Updated: July 10, 2013]: You may want to check this out: Disable Animations In Android for Better Performance

P/S: Hope this helps, share with me if you have other tips on improving Android's phone performance especially on GUI respond rate!

Try AirPush Detector but No Effect

2013-03-31T10:05:00.000+08:00

As many of new users of Android phone, I downloaded tons of application and game but unfortunately not all these applications are friendly. What I hate the most are those pop-up advertisements. They are not just very irritating but also slow down your entire system. Some pop-up ads are not children friendly too! lol!

So I found this application AirPush Detector with good ratings and reviews in Google Play but the bad news is it doesn't seem working after using it fow few months. It supposes to tell you what applications that has pop-up advertisement but it has not effect at all. This guy basically can't detect anything. Too bad... :(

So I decided to uninstall this AirPush Detector because it is kind of useless. So how can we prevent the pop-up ads then? There is no automated way unless you have a better application to recommend me?

The only thing that I do is I have to manually uninstall every single application that I have installed, then I will know which application actually causes it. Another smarter way you can do is "Force Close" the application and you still get the pop-up ads, it is most likely the application is running services at the background. You can disable the services and see whether there is still or getting less pop-up ads. If yes, then it is high possibility that the pop-up ads is came from this application.

Easier said then done especially you have few applications (not just one) that cause the pop-up ads and please also note that those pop-up ads do not occur immediately. You usually get pop-up in few days. So you may face some challenges to identify them. Perhaps the best way is prevention, try not to install too many unreliable applications at the same time. So it is easier for you to detect it. Good luck!

P/S: If you don't trust my review, you can try it here or search AirPush detector in GooglePlay. Please do let me know if this app can detect anything or not. :)

Best Todo List Program for Android

2012-12-03T14:40:00.000+08:00

GTasks is the best and free Todo list application that I have been using since I baught my Android phone, Samsung Galaxy S3. I use this to organize my daily activities and sometimes I used this applicaiton to take notes too. It is pretty flexible and user friendly!

There are few good things about this application and I think this is good to share with you. Some are it I didn't aware of them until after I use it for certain period.

Few Good Things

Able to synch with Google tasks. So you won't lose all your todo information because you can always synch back later.

Has categories but you need to create them. When you create your task, it defaults to "All" categories. You can go to Menu->Move to List, then choose the List/Category that you want this task to be categorized too. If the List/Category doesn't exist, you can click on the "New List.." to create them.

Has other normal todo list features such as due date, reminder, set recurring task, and setting prioriy. For priority, it only allows you to set urgent or not urgent. 2 levels of prioritization only. :) It allows you to do sorting too either by date, name or priority.

Very user friendly. You can put it in widget to show All or specific category/list tasks at your home screen without even open the application. When you are in the application, you can swipe right or left to switch to different task category which I find this is extremely handy.

There is only one bad thing I would like to comment for this Gtask applicaition is when you try to delete multiple tasks at the same time, it doesn't work. The software itself allows you to do that but it seems like has bugs. It lags very badly and after that you check on those tasks, there are still there.

So to workaround with it, you need to delete one by one which I find it is not every effective and time consuming. Thus, I try to delete the task rather than keep the list growing! Something to improve...

You can download this application here or just search for Gtask in your GooglePlay store.

Best Watching Movie Online Application for Android and IOS - PPS.TV

2012-11-12T13:50:00.000+08:00

One of the best things you can do with your mobile tablet is to watch movie online on your bed or where ever the place that you will comfortable with. So I have been searching around and trying out different applications for my Android phone and iPad and it turns out the best movie streaming applications is PPS.tv. No other application is as good as or as stable as PPS.tv. For example, "PPTV" which I downloaded lately, it drained up my battery overnight eventhough I"m not using it. So I will definately not recommended for it.

Just do a search with "PPS" or "PPS.TV" in your GooglePlay Store and iTunes, you should able to find it. To know more about this company, you can visit the official page here. According to them, it is the world largest online video service provider but wikipedia says it is still behind Youku and Tudou in China Market. :D

There are mobile and HD version and I think either one is fine. But for my Android phone, somehow the mobile version is only working for me but not the HD version. For HD version, it works fine with my iPad.

Pros

Watch Movies or TV shows for free.
Contains most updated TV programs especially for Chinese TV shows.
Has ability to resume movie after you close or exit the application.

Cons

Is only written in Chinese. You need to undrestand Chinese in order to use this application.
Need high-speed internet connection for smooth video streaming.
Most movies are outdated. If you're looking for the latest movie, it may not have it.
Some western movies are translated to Mandarin which I find it is not original

Is It Legal?

Most people will ask this quesiton whether PPS.TV is legal or not? I honestly do not know the answer. If I"m not mistaken, the streaming technology is using P2P protocol which means technically we cannot tell whether it is "illegal" or not. If it is not "illegal", is it legal? I wouldn't sure and the discussion goes beyond of this scope. So I suggest you use this applicaiton for your educational purpose only.

Using Symbolic Link in Windows with Mklink Command

2012-10-08T13:23:00.000+08:00

Symbolic link is something very common in Unix or Linux environment which allow to link the files and directory and ultimately able to make fool of the application. However, not many of us aware there is a new command in windows (i.e. Mklink) which was introduced in MS Vista.

For example, I want to create a soft link to folder_a, I enter the command below:

D:\tmp\mklink_test>mklink /D folder_linked_a folder_a
symbolic link created for folder_linked_a <<===>> folder_a

This creates a symbolic link folder_linked_a to folder_a. To create a hard link, you will need to use the following command with /F:

D:\tmp\mklink_test>mklink /D /F folder_linked_b folder_asymbolic link created for folder_linked_a <<===>> folder_a

For file (not directory) symbolic linking, remove the /D and for file (not directory) hard link, enter the command with /H. To show all the command help just type "Mklink /?"

What is Soft/Symbolic and Hard Link?

Soft or symbolic link is just a shortcut to a file or folder.Operating system treats this a shortcut, not the actual location. Sometimes when we want to quick workaround without changing the directory, using symbolic link is one of the ways to make fool of the application.

Hard link is directly points to the file. The operating system treats this hard link as the actual location. You may want to do this to fake an application directory if symbolic link doesn't work.

How to delete the link?

Just as usual, either you can delete it from windows explorer GUI or command line using "rmdir" or "del"command.

Mobile Android Version of Speedtest.Net

2012-10-01T12:49:00.000+08:00

Used to go the www.speedtest.net directly to check for the upload and download speed and now is a lot more convenient to check it out from your phone. I just love this application - Speedtest.net from Google Play!

Hope you like it too. :)

Android Apps from The Edge is Very Suck!

2012-09-24T12:35:00.000+08:00

Specifically the apps are "The Edge Financially Daily" and "The Edge Singapore". It supposes to be a very informative newspaper on financial stuff it ends up totally screw up. Perhaps they hire the fresh grad to implement such application and never properly verify the apps?

The user review for "The Edge Financially Daily", the user review for "The Edge Singapore" is even worst!

It is extremely slow and can't download. Not user friendly... I think maybe this is due to the implementation is not in XML. Anyway, I"m speechless.

P/S: I think the IOS apps version is not very good too, maybe slightly better. The edge, time to improve and act fast!

Solution to Sync Outlook Notes to Android

2012-09-17T11:10:00.000+08:00

Unfortunately there is no way you can do that (at the free way), unless you know how, then you can share with me. I was looking for a solution for this when I"m changing my phone from Windows Mobile to Android. The only way that I found is to copy over those notes to simple text and then you can view it in your Android phone.

Step 1: Convert Outlook Notes to Text

You will need to perform a basic virtual basic script to automatically convert the notes to text which I found it from www.syncdroid.net. Follow the steps there and it should work. A list of notes in text will be created in your C:\notes folder.

Step 2: Upload to Google Docs

You can then upload those texts to Google Docs and install the Android apps which allows you to sync with Google Docs. Try to search in Google Play Store, you can find plenty of them. I"m using the official "Drive" Apps from Google.

Hope that helps.

Best Free Virtual Desktop for Windows - Dexpot

2012-09-07T10:38:00.000+08:00

It has been quite sometime I don't use virtual desktop software (of course in Windows) because most of them are not reliable especially the free version as mentioned in my very long time ago post. :)

This Dexpot Virtual Desktops software is so far I like most. The most useful feature in this Dexpot is the "Desktop Manager". When you enable it you will see something like below and you can quickly switch to different virtual monitors.

It has 4 virtual monitors in total. If you don't want the "Desktop Manager" at the lower right, you can move around it too. Switching speed a little bit lagging as you can see the screen flashing especially you switch to "monitor 1" but I think that is still acceptable.

You can download Dexpot here.

Best Free Flow Chart Software - yEd Graphic Editor

2012-08-20T10:31:00.000+08:00

Engineers (maybe programmer too) like to use flow chart to illustrate the processing flow and I'm one of them. However, it is very hard to find a free user friendly software to draw the flow chart. So most of the time, I'm using Microsoft Word to draw the flow chart which is totally not effective at all until I found this free "yEd Graphic edtitor" by yWorks which was recommended by one of my colleagues. Once you you have tried this software, I"m sure you will throw away others because it is really very user friendly and very convenient to use.

A very simple flow chart that I draw using this software within a few minutes (I think around 2 minutes)...

What I like about this yEd Graphic editor?

Yeah, of course it is FREE. The main reason!

Draw any shape easily. You can drag and drop the box that you would like to draw. Re-size the shape as you wish. To redraw a similar box, you can just do copy and paste.

Draw arrow easily by clicking and holding the box and moving it to another box. Just try it yourself, you will know what I meant.

Enter text in the box by just double clicking the box.

Auto show the line to tell you whether your boxes are aligned with the rest. It shows you both edges and middle lines of the of box when you move around your boxes.

Change the color in the box by "property view". Just click on the box, you will see the property view, then you can change a lot of stuff there, not only the color!

Enter label besides the arrow by just clicking the label, you will then key in the label text that as you wish. After that, you can also move the label to few predefined positions of the arrow (e.g. upper left/right or lower left/right). Very user friendly!

Those are the simple one and I believe you can do more fancy stuff with this software. But for these tips above, I think it is good enough for majority of the people. Enjoy!

You can download this yEd Graphic editors by yWorks here: Download yEd Graphic Editors