Getting GitHub for Windows

GitHub offers the Windows client for free and you can get it by clicking on the download link at the top right corner of the project page. The current release, as of this writing, is 1.0.41. The interface owes a lot to the flat color schemes inspired by Windows 8. This may throw off those who use it on Windows XP, Vista, or 7.

Although the developers state that you can use the Windows client without using GitHub, nevertheless it has been optimized for GitHub, so I will focus on that use case in this review.

The Client

The leftmost pane of the program subdivides your repositories between those that you only have in your GitHub account and those that are in your GitHub account as well as locally mirrored. Clicking on your user account will show you the former (i.e., all of your GitHub repositories).

Clicking on the “local” icon will display those repositories for which you also have a working directory (i.e., local clones).

There are two ways to view the state of the working copy of your local repository. You can right click on a repository and choose “open,” or you can click on the little blue arrow to the right of the repository name. If your repository has uncommitted changes, then the client will look something like this:

Enter the commit message, click on the commit button, and, if there no problems with the commit, the program will show a success screen that looks like this:

Don’t forget to sync your local repository with the origin by clicking on the highlighted blue circle arrows at the top center of the window. A blue bar will indicate the progress of the sync and, assuming that there are no problems syncing, the window will show the recent activity of your working copy.

Adding Repositories

One very visible way that GitHub has been accomodating the Windows platform is the addition of a “Clone in Windows” button to project pages on GitHub. This button is above the branch indicator on the home page of each project. Clicking on that button will clone that repository to your GitHub directory in the Documents folder of your local personal computer. The Windows client will detect the new repository and show it in the main window.

By default, repositories are cloned using secure HTTP (i.e., HTTPS) so you can be sure that the files haven’t been tampered with. Furthermore, you need to have a GitHub account in order to clone GitHub repositories to begin with, which means generating SSH keys and other login credentials. The GitHub for Windows client caches these credentials so that you don’t have to re-enter them every time you have to make a commit.

Aside from going to the GitHub website, the GitHub client itself supports adding repositories by means of drag & drop.

Branching

Branching is an important feature of Git. In Git, branches are moveable pointers that point to a particular commit. This encourages a workflow where branches are frequently made and merged. This is a big difference from many earlier version control systems, where creating a new branch was a big deal.

To deal with branches, click on the branch icon between the sync icon and settings icon at the top center of the program window. It will be called “master” because that’s the default branch in any repository. You will see a box pop up showing the name of the current branch and a command line to either filter the names of other branches or create a new branch.

The “manage” button above the command line opens a window that allows you to merge branches. Drag the branches that you want to merge to the open slots at the bottom of the window. Then, click on the “merge” button.

Remote Repositories

Even though the GitHub client for Windows is optimized for use with ones GitHub account, the developers claim that it can be used with other remote Git repositories. It cannot, however, be used with more than one remote repository at the same time. For small projects, this should not be a concern. It’s more of a concern for large projects.

For example, a hundred developers making commits to the same repository on the same day can get out of hand. One possible workflow that distributed version control systems make possible is to divide the mass of developers into teams. Each team has its own remote repository. The team leads then push cleaned up features and bug fixes to the project lead, whose job it is to maintain the principal project repository. Each team would access the contributions of other teams by having their team lead make a pull request from the repository of the project lead. The rank-level developers would then pull from their team repository to their working repository and, finally, their own working copy. Optionally, they could do a pull from the respective repository directly.

Since the above workflow requires multiple remote repositories, then GitHub for Windows can’t help. Again, this should only be an issue for very large projects and the majority of open source projects aren’t large enough to warrant such an organization.

Limitations

Although GitHub for Windows is easy to use, it is not a full-featured Git client. The developers admit that the command line is indispensable for certain use cases. For instance, to get around the limit of only one remote repository, described in the previous section, one must use the command line. In fact, aside from the user interface, GitHub for Windows really doesn’t offer much that the Git command line doesn’t already have. I get the sense that the GitHub developers aren’t eating their own dogfood when it comes to GitHub for Windows.

Those who want to leave the command line behind and gain features in the bargain should look at third-party tools like SmartGit/Hg, which I reviewed last month. Pay particular attention to its diff tool and its facility for helping to edit .gitignore files. Admittedly, GitHub for Windows has a nicer user interface.

Conclusion

The price can’t be beaten, the user interface is as beautiful as it is functional and GitHub integration is trivial. That last point is the most significant thing about GitHub for Windows. It shows that not everyone wants Windows users to be second-class citizens in the open source world, and the fine folks at GitHub are among those working to make cooperation possible.

My latest find is called MP3Jam. It is a simple but surprisingly capable free tool for locating and downloading anything from individual songs to entire albums.

Get the App

This is just the kind of app which I would expect to try and set up several browser toolbars during the installation process. However no, there were not any. Had the program gone ahead and installed something anyway, without asking? No, everything was checked out.

The legality of this app may be a bit questionable, given the simple fact of what it is capable of doing. With that in mind, the maker posts a disclaimer at the bottom of the web site.

“Free MP3jam uses open music repositories of YouTube. All contents are copyrighted and owned by their respective owners. MP3jam does not encourage or condone the illegal duplication or distribution of copyrighted content. Music downloads must be for time-shifting or device-shifting purposes and for personal, private, non-commercial uses only”.

Setup is fairly straight forward and, as I said, there is no software that attempts to come along for the ride. Language choices include English, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, German and Portuguese.

The app does ask if you wish to install HotSpot Shield, which is a legitimate VPN program, and you mush choose a Yes or No. You can not simply click Next and move on. Another program, ARO, also throws up this prompt during installation of MP3Jam.

The Main Screen

It does not get much simpler than this. There are two tabs located at the top of the page — Search & Downloads and History. Below are several options for genres of music —  Classical, Electronic, Hip Hop, Indie, Jazz, Metal, Pop, R&B and Rock. Clicking any of these displays a list of popular music within that category.

Click on your genre of choice and scroll down through the music that is featured. Alternatively, you will spot a large search bar just beneath the tabs. Click in the box and type in an artist, album or song title, while the program displays popular matching choices as you type, very much as Google search does. Hit the enter button to return in-depth results, including album art, release dates and track lengths.

Results appear quickly and each album will display the first several tracks, with an option to click “more tracks” beneath the bottom one to see everything.

Play controls appear across the bottom of the screen — Play/Pause Forwards and Reverse, along with volume control.

Get your Music

Under each album you will find an option to download the entire thing. If your wish to either listen to or download an individual tracks then both of these options can be discovered to the left of each song title.

You can also share the track or album with social networks Facebook and Twitter.

If you choose to download then once you hit the button, you will be taken to a screen that displays the progress. It reminds me somewhat of the Windows Media Player display as a CD is being ripped. The downloads are very quick.

Once the download is complete an “Open Folder” option appears in the place of “Download Album”. Click to visit your new music which, by default, goes to the “My Music” folder under Users – Name in Windows.

The download includes the cover art. It also contains most ID3 tags — this may vary based on the album or track. In this case, I was missing track numbers, but all other information was present.

History

The History tab is simple — it just displays your download history. There are no other options on this page. You can still choose to play tracks from here though.

Settings

Settings can be accessed by clicking the gear (or cog if you prefer) icon at the top right of the page. The settings page is simple — only a few options appear within it.

You can choose where content is pulled from, though there are only two choices — YouTube and vk.com. The latter is a social network, self-described as “VK is the largest European social network with more than a 100 million active users”.

From this page you can also choose where your files are saved to and also tell the program to prompt you, each time you download, to choose a location. You can also change the language settings, view the version number and make a donation to the developer.

In the End

As I stated earlier, I am not completely comformatable with the legality of this app. After all, you are downloading free music, meaning it is almost certainly not within the parameters of what the recording industry would consider fair use.

On the other hand, the app  works incredibally well. Search and download is extremely fast. Setup and settings are very simple. It found almost every bit of music I threw at it and displayed all with detailed information and album art. It is also free, and there is something to be said for that as well.

In conclusion, you must make your own decision regarding how you feel about using such a service. Personally, while I certainly liked it, I shall stick to buying my music from Amazon MP3.

When I’m in London the only choice for me is Tube Map. With its extensive detail and navigational features it makes the whole experience far easier. Read on to find out more!

Overview

If you’ve ever been to London there is a strong chance you’ve experienced a trip on the Tube. By transporting thousands of people around the busy city its an invaluable network. For newcomers to the service you would often pick up a Tube map and then plan your route. However, I feel the time has come that commuters should ditch the flimsy paper copy and start navigating on their mobile devices.

The main page for navigating around the application.

Navigating Around The Application

After downloading and opening the application you’ll be faced with a complete Tube Map. From this screen you can find stations, lines and locations which you’re aiming for. The map is fully interactive too, so clicking on a certain place will take you to more information. There will also be a link to Bing Maps at the bottom of the page which gives you the chance to see where the station is in relation to London.

The first button at the bottom is “Lines.” Here you’ll be able to see the status of the thirteen different lines. This is indicated by telling you whether there is closures or good service. You also choose whether you would like to view the status of the lines now, for later or for the coming weekend. Giving you the opportunity to plan your route around the closures.

Being able to quickly check the status of each line is great.

Going back the main page your second option is called “Route,” and as the name suggests, this is the part of the app which plans your route for you. This process is really simple, only requiring you to select a start station, destination station and journey options — the two options are “fastest” and “fewest changes.” After inputting your information you can tap calculate.

Making your route.

Almost instantly the app will then provide you with a suggested route. The route I put in was Acton Town to All Saints, selecting the fastest route. I’m instantly informed that the estimated journey time is 49 minutes, it passes through 18 stations and over three different lines. Below that I’m given a full run through of where I need to change lines.

After selecting your route you will be shown a suggested route.

It was this route calculator which really made Tube map invaluable to me. With its quick service I never need to worry about how to navigate around the Tube again.

The third option on your main page is called “Find,” and lets you find a specific station. After selecting a station the map will highlight the one I clicked, making it easier to locate. The final option on the main page allows you to see the departure boards from a certain station and line.

Integration With Your Oyster Card

When riding on the Tube you’ll soon notice nearly everyone using blue cards to pay for their rides, an Oyster Card. For those that don’t know, this is a card which makes traveling around London far easier. One thing I really liked about this app is that you can link your Oyster card to the application.

Linking up your Oyster Card is really easy.

After linking your card you can then view an instant balance to find out how much you have remaining. This integration is fantastic and it even allows you to pin your Oyster balance to your start screen with a live tile — making the process of checking your balance far simpler.

Tube Map Pro

Tube Map is available for Windows Phone 7, 7.5 and 8, however, there is also a Windows 8 specific version called Tube Map Pro. This costs £0.79 and removes the advertisements from the application. And to be honest, the advertisements do get really annoying. They take up quite a big section at the top of the screen and you definitely notice them.

However, I would only recommend the Pro version for regular Tube travelers. For the people who travel less often the free version will be sufficient. It possesses all the same abilities and you probably won’t notice the adverts as much.

Why I Use Tube Map

Probably the most important reason I chose Tube Map over other similar apps is because the app still works when you have no internet connection. The first time I visited London I used a different application and as soon as I descended on the station my connection depleted completely. Leaving me with a useless app and no idea where to go.

However, that problem isn’t a problem with Tube Map and you can still form routes or view the map without any connection to the internet. This, along with other great features made this the only viable choice for me.

Wrap-Up

As I’ve stated above, Tube Map is the only app I would ever use to help me navigate around London’s underground. With its readily accessible map, station information, route tracker and offline mode the app successfully ticks all of my boxes.

Tube Map is continually being updated too, I can’t wait to see what else is done to improve this fantastic application!

Thanks for reading! How do you get around the Tube network? Still using an old-fashioned map or have you started using a mobile app? Let us know below.

If you are new to Windows Phone 8 and are looking for some useful apps, we have compiled a list of some of the most useful apps that are available in the Windows Apps Store.

Rowi

If you are a Twitter freak, then this is a must have app for you. The official Twitter app is without a doubt a very decent application when it comes to managing your Twitter account but if you are looking for something more and willing to spend some bucks, you can install Rowi which costs $ 1.49. It is also available as a free app but that includes ads it doesn’t support push notifications for mentions and messages.

Apart from that you can post tweets, manage lists, use multiple Twitter accounts, save for later reading using Readability, Instapaper and Pocket, translate tweets with Bing and much more.

Price: Free / $1.49

Photosynth

Photosynth is one of my personal favourites. It is an excellent photo capturing app that allows users to capture panoramas using their Windows Phone 8 device. It is available for iOS devices as well and before moving to WP8, this was the app I used to use all the time to capture photos of places and people around me using my mobile device.

Later, the capture panoramas can be shared on Facebook and Twitter using the Photosynth.net service. If you want, you can even upload the images to Bing where millions of people share their captured panoramas.

Price: Free

Nextgen Reader

Nextgen reader is one of the best Google Reader apps available for Windows Phone devices. It has a simple and easy to user interface that allows users to read news without any issues. The app offers an offline mode as well and allows users to pin multiple live tiles. If you want, you can even save the articles to Readbility, Instapaper or Read it Later for offline reading. With NextGen Reader, you can view the items, marks them as read, share them on popular social networks including Twitter and Facebook and much more.

Price: $1.99

BoxFiles for Dropbox

Dropbox is something I cannot live without. It’s the place where I create a backup of all the important data that I need. Since there is no official Dropbox app for Windows Phone till now, I had to look for alternatives by other developers and BoxFiles is the app that solved this problem. With BoxFiles, you can easily access your data stored in your Dropbox account. If you want, you can even move files from SkyDrive to Dorpbox and manage them easily.

The application also offers a paid version for $1.29 which contains no advertisements and offers SkyDrive integration as well.

Price: Free / $1.29

WhatsApp

WhatsApp is one of the most popular instant messaging apps that is available on all major mobile platforms including Android and iOS as well. Personally, I think it should be installed as we all have friends and relatives who live in other countries. Rather than sending messages to them (which can be quite expensive in some countries), you can easily send them WhatsApp messages if you have an active data plan. You can send messages, images, videos and audio clips, create groups and much more.

Price: Free

Metrogram

If you are an Instagram fan, you will be disappointed to know that there is no official Instagram app for Windows Phone till now. There are news circulating on the internet that the official Instagram app is under development but till then, we need to find an alternative and Metrogram is exactly what you need.

Metrogram is a very handy Instagram client for Windows Phone devices that allows users to manage their Instagram accounts, check recent updates from people you are following, search for people and follow them, share/save photos and much more. However, the application doesn’t allow users to create an account from within the app. And the other drawback is that you cannot take photos from the app till now.

Price: Free

Evernote

Evernote is one of the best note taking application available right now. The app is available for all platforms so that you can easily manage and sync your notes. You can save notes, URLS, photos, videos, sync notes, create tags and notebooks, pin notes and more using Evernote for Windows Phone.

Price: Free

Camera360

Camera360 is another photo editing app that allows users to edit their photos, add filters to them and share them on multiple sites including Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. The app contains a photo diary that sort photos according to the date they were taken which makes it easy to browse the photos taken and edited using the app.

Price: Free

Xbox SmartGlass

Xbox SmartGlass for Windows Phone 8 is something you need to manage your console from your phone. With SmartGlass, you can easily control your console and in certain cases, you can even use your device as a remote control as well. You can use the app to type in your console, browse the internet on your Xbox and more.

However, in order to use the app, you must have an Xbox obviously and Xbox membership.

Price: Free

Battery Level for WP8

If you are a Windows Phone 8 user, you should have a pretty good idea that the taskbar in WP8 doesn’t display the battery percentage. You have to manually go to the settings to check the remaining battery. This is where Battery Level for WP8 comes into play. Battery Level for WP8 displays the remaining battery percentage in the tiles in the main screen and lock screen.

Price: Free Trial/ $0.99

Conclusion

Well, this is my personal recommendation of the apps I am using on my Windows Phone 8 and also include some general apps like Evernote and Whatsapp. I preferred not to include Facebook in the list as it is one app we all install on any device we buy and may not be a “Must Have” app for your device.

If you think we missed any app that should be on the list, we’d love to hear about it in the comments below!

In fact, the app boasts a long list of features — manage media, identify tracks, tag, organize and rename, automatic library updates, download music and podcasts, sync and backup with mobile devices, record and convert, burn, play and stream to devices.

Get the App

MediaMonkey is free, but there is also a “Gold” version that can be purchased, which retails for $50 USD, and comes along with a few additional features — likely none that most users will really need.

“Manage small to very large collections of audio files and playlists (50,000+), whether on a hard drive, network, or CDs. Look up missing information and album art online, tag almost any audio format, and automatically rename/re-organize tracks on your hard drive”.

Once installed, there is a bit of setup to take care of. A wizard will pop up to guide you through this. If you did not get the paid version then you can simply click “Next” to bypass the registration page. Next you will have to choose what file types you wish to associate with the app. The final step will prompt you to browse to your music folder and show MediaMonkey where to find it. It is not network-aware, but you can map the drive (if it is on a different computer) to make this work. The app does recognize other computers on the network in a general sort of way, so you can also use this method.

Depending on the size of your library, scanning could take some time.

The Interface

The interface is not complicated, There is the basic menu across the top and a set of icons below that. Despite being simple, it contains everything you will need.

Menu:

• File
• Edit
• View
• Play
• Tools
• Help
• MediaMonkey Gold
• My Computer

My Computer (which displays those previously mentioned mapped drives) is the easiest way to navigate to your music files. From here you can browse to the song you wish to play and double-click the track to get started.

Play controls are displayed at the bottom of the screen with track information to the right side in a column of its own.

Tools

The Tools menu is where most people will likely find most of what they installed this app for. Several options exist for cleaning up your library, such as Auto-Tag from both the from the web and based on the file name. Users can also synchronize tags and work directly with ID3 Tags from here.

This is also the place to go to both rip and burn CD’s and also access extensions and options, the latter of which contains a number of features to allow the customer to set things exactly as he or she wishes them to be.

The Options page alone could be an entire article so I recommend exploring, but I will point out one very important feature, which is “Media Sharing”. This is where you can set up streaming of your music to DLNA devices, such as Google TV, Roku and many DVR’s and Blu-ray players. You will need to enable this feature and add players manually.

Options also lets you change the look of the app by using skins, and sync with portable media players like the iPod and others. You can even add plugins to the app. Plugins are divided into sections — Input, Output, DSP, General and Visualization.

Podcasts

The directory, which is displayed down the left column, contains a couple of interesting options, one of which is Podcasts. Click the arrow to the left of this to open up the options. Options include Subscriptions, Directories, Location, Genre, Year and Files to Edit. Subscriptions contains a list of the shows you are subscribed to and Directories will allow you to discover new shows.

Net Radio

Net Radio contains two directories to aid you in finding stations to listen to. The default directories are the prominent Shoutcast and Icecast networks.

Both contain hundreds of stations covering every genre. You can browse through them based on the genre and find almost anything you could possibly wish to listen to.

Web

The Web has several options available — Amazon, CDUniverse, eMusic, HDTracks and AllMusic. If you click on one, Amazon for instance, a browser window will open within MediaMonkey. From here, you can browse and purchase music.

Many of these options allow you to right-click on them and add more — for instance a new podcast directory or a different location to purchase music from.

The Verdict

While there is a paid version that adds a few features, MediaMonkey free does more than enough to satisfy almost any music lover. The Gold version does add faster CD burning, on-the-fly file conversions and a bit more, but probably not enough to justify the cost.

MediaMonkey is a one-stop app for everything you could possibly want, with music listening, burning, ripping, podcasts and even internet radio. Perhaps best of all, the app affords you the opportunity to finally clean up that mess of a music folder that we all posess. And it does all of this free of charge. It is hard to beat that.

While no operating system will ever be perfect, Windows 9 has the potential to be a very solid, competitive OS. However, there are a few specific changes that I believe should be implemented into Windows 9 if Microsoft is to win back the customers that they lost last October.

Keep the Modern UI and the Desktop Separate

In the past, Microsoft has stated that they have every intention of keeping their touchscreen interface, otherwise known as the Modern UI, inside of Windows. Although I am rather displeased by this decision, I find the interface, on its own, to be tolerable. However, inside of Windows 8, elements from the two interfaces are mashed together in such a way that it makes the operating system difficult to navigate. For example, clicking on the network icon in the taskbar reveals a large, obnoxiously intrusive box that contains a list of available networks. Not only is this an obvious design anomaly, it can cause confusion among those who may not be as skilled with technology. Users should be able to use the operating system without encountering an entirely different interface. Unless Microsoft plans to further enrage Windows fans, these two interfaces must be separated if Windows 9 is to be successful.

Revive Windows Media Center

Windows Media Center seems to be a dying piece of software. Ideally, it is to be used as a media-browsing interface for a home theater PC. While the idea behind Windows Media Center is solid, it could certainly benefit from further development. With a fresh design and improved support for multiple types of media such as games, movies, and T.V. shows, Windows Media Center could become a viable solution for those in search of a great couch-surfing interface or even a potential alternative to Steam’s Big Picture.

Better Search

Searching inside of Windows 8 is not a pleasant experience. What should be an efficient method of finding a file, launching an app, or locating a setting, is a cumbersome, time-wasting chore. One particularly bothersome aspect of Windows 8′s search is the fact that the user is forced to navigate through search results via three separate tabs. I admire the fact that Microsoft is making an attempt to improve organization throughout the operating system, but it’s clear that they need to take a different approach.

The search interface inside of Windows 8 would be significantly easier to navigate if the categories of results were, for example, organized inside of columns rather than tabs.

Make the Modern UI More Configurable

Windows 8′s Modern UI is not necessarily known for its extensive amount of preferences. While the user is provided with a sufficient amount of basic options such as the ability to modify colors and change the design of the start screen background, I still feel as though the Modern UI is somewhat locked up.

While I’m not expecting anything excessive, the ability to add custom tile images and custom start screen backgrounds are two, reasonable examples of how the Modern UI could be more configurable and ultimately provide the user with a better, more personalized experience.

What would you like to see inside of Windows 9? Be sure to leave a comment below and let us know!

Instead of building a new HTPC I opted for a Google TV box. I got the same functionality I had been using Windows Media Center for thanks to the Plex server and app. However, many of our discs had been ripped as ISO files — a format that Google TV, even using Flex, can not handle. I needed to convert the files and options included MKV, MP4 and AVI. All would work, but I opted for MKV.

MakeMKV

In searching for a file conversion app I stumbled up MakeMKV, which bills itself as a one-click solution to convert video that you own into a free and patents-unencumbered format that can be played everywhere.

Features:

• Reads DVD and Blu-ray discs
• Reads Blu-ray discs protected with latest versions of AACS and BD+
• Preserves all video and audio tracks, including HD audio
• Preserves chapters information
• Preserves all meta-information (track language, audio type)
• Fast conversion – converts as fast as your drive can read data.
• No additional software is required for conversion or decryption.
• Available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
• Functionality to open DVD discs is free and will always stay free.
• All features (including Blu-ray decryption and processing) are free during BETA

That last part implies that this software may not remain free, or perhaps will simply have free and Pro versions. Version 1.8.1 of the app is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8, including 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the operating system.

Getting Started

The installation is straightforward and the app of “Softpedia Certified”, meaning it contains no spyware, adware or viruses. Once it is installed and opened it will immediately begin searching for optical drive for a disc.

The dropdown menu allows you to select between different optical drives and also recognizes virtual drives such as ones created by CloneDrive and Daemon Tools. Windows 8 also allows for mounting of ISO files as a built-in functionality.

Menus

MakeMKV keeps it simple and, to that end, there are only three items in the menu bar — File, View and Help. Each contains a sparse but useful amount of options.

Files allows you to open a file or access a disc, eject disc, set your output folder and several more options. View contains options for Toolbar, Clear Log and Preferences (more on that in a moment). Finally, Help is self explanatory — access to online help, the About page and a bit more.

Preferences

Preferences is also sparse, but useful The first tab is for video and it simply gives you the option to choose where your output file lands. By default, this is set to “Auto”, but I prefer to choose my own destination, so I changed to “Custom” and browsed to my chosen folder.

The rest of the preferences, while worth exploring, can largely be left alone. Unless you have a pressing need to make a change, then these are all set at their optimum.

The Menu Icon Bar

There are also a few icons across the top bar, just below the menu. These also are simple — the app aims to make everything as easy as possible.

Icons:

• Open
• Backup
• Savel selected items
• Stream
• Preferences
• Eject disc

Ripping a disc

Now that we are familiar with options and settings, let us get down to the business of actually ripping a DVD. After all, that is what the app is for and why you are reading this article.

Since I have Virtual CloneDrive installed, and my discs are already ripped to ISO files, that is method I need to use here. The program is network aware, so even if your files are stored elsewhere, as mine are, you will be fine. Click the file to begin scanning.

Once completed, you will be presented with a very simple menu. In fact, the only option is “Make MKV”. This is not a particularly quick process, but it is not overly long either. File conversion is never an easy task — a two hour movie took approximately 30 minutes.

If you left the destination folder set to default then the program will create a new folder using the name of the file. Not a bad thing, but as I said previously, it is best to create your own.

Alternatives

There are numerous file conversion programs out there — for multi-purpose I find FreeMake works the best. It can convert almost any format into almost any other. There are also several good paid programs, but with the free ones available, I see no need. If you are starting with a DVD or ISO then any ripping program will also work (which is really what MakeMKV is).

The Verdict

MakeMKV worked extremely well with the first two ISO files I threw at it. It was quick, gave no quirky error messages and did the job as it promised.

the program is free (in beta) but for added functionality it seems you will have to pay. That is likely for Blu-Ray and perhaps a few other features. Settings are lite, but in a good way. On the whole, that makes this app a win-win all around. If you can use MKV files — and most systems can (including Windows Media Center if you install Haali Media Splitter) then this is what I would recommend.

This article will focus on iTunes integration, so what are you waiting for? Dive in to see if TuneUp matches your needs.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Ready to begin

In order to bring some order to the chaos that is your music collection, you are going to need to spend a little time following through a three step process. TuneUp provide some good online help to begin your journey here.

The online help for TuneUp is comprehensive, and a good starting place.

From Chaos to Order

There are some old Status Quo CD rips that I have before the days of CDDB and internet lookup sites, so this is a good place to start. I am hoping for a decent success rate from such a mainstream artist. First, I filter the tracks in iTunes, and then drag them from the left of the window into TuneUp‘s Ready to Clean! area.

Beginning with some improperly ripped CD tracks.

You will notice that TuneUp‘s interface has appeared as a right hand side-bar to iTunes. It also configures itself to start every time iTunes is loaded (which did become a little tedious after a while), and if you resize the iTunes or TuneUp window, the sidebar size and shape will match that of the iTunes window. This makes for a truly integrated feel, and is for me a pleasant and thoughtful touch.

Detection begins immediately after the files have been dropped, and after a few moments, TuneUp will have attempted to detect the tracks. If no exact match can be found, Likely Matches will be returned instead. This was not a good first attempt for me, as for my 2 CD collection, TuneUp listed 11 albums of Likely Matches, instead of the one album of matched tracks that I was hoping for.

Likely Matches are suggested if there’s no 100% match. You can listen to the tracks from within the results window.

A couple of tracks looked ok to me, so I could click on the tick symbol to the right of the Likely Match album, and these tracks did then update quickly and correctly in iTunes. Just to be sure, you can listen to the tracks from within the results window by pressing on the small black play button to the right of the track.

If at First You Don’t Succeed

Undeterred, I placed my Eva Cassidy “The Best Of ” tracks into TuneUp‘s capable hands.  As the track matching is done by sampling the music to get an audio footprint for comparison, it doesn’t matter how much or how little of the track information is already available. This is simply ignored, and a like-for-like match is made with the actual audio content.

Imported tracks often have a generic “Track” prefix.

This is where iTunes match comes in handy. Deleting your original low bit rate file versions, ripped or otherwise, and downloading the iTunes match provision should surely be a better source file to match against. Would it also work going the other way, though? To test this theory, and to prove the point, I have tried to match a ripped CD using Apple’s lossless encoding, and the same CD deleted and re-downloaded as a lower bit rate version, and then the CD ripped at a very low bit rate.

TuneUp uses waveform recognition technology to create an acoustic fingerprint. It then references this against a large database to find a match.

I am pleased to report that for all bit rates for my chosen album, each track was identified by TuneUp, and I was offered a fully Matched list. This Matched list recommendation has, in all of my testing, been 100% accurate too. Whereas Likely Matches are a bit of a hit-and-miss game.

Performance Issues

I continued with my select, drag-and-drop cleanup tasks for a few more albums, often leaving the program to work its magic while I did something else. It wasn’t long before my laptop fan had kicked-in and on closer inspection TuneUp and iTunes were running at 100% of the CPU capability. TuneUp‘s processing was causing iTunes to stop responding altogether. I ended the TuneUp process and restarted the PC.

After a restart all was well again for a couple of albums, and then I had the same issue. It didn’t seem to be related to how many songs I was processing, but more to asking the user interface to do something while it was busy looking up, or analysing.

Unfortunately, the software often maxes out the processor, making the system unusable.

To be absolutely sure, I have a brand-new clean build Windows 8 machine, so I installed TuneUp on that machine, and moved the license across (you can only do a limited number of license moves like this). Testing the same track lookups, and random clicking about, I was able to re-produce the 100% CPU utilisation. I have notified the support team of this, and await a response.

One thing you need to get used to when working with TuneUp is the need for it to keep up to date with your collection after changes have been applied. You will frequently see the message “TuneUp has detected a change in your iTunes library and needs

Not Very Likely

Sometimes the results that come back from TuneUp are just so unhelpful, you wonder why you bothered. Here I had a track that had been labelled incorrectly as a David Gray song (I think it was a Damien Rice track), and TuneUp thought it belonged to — well, I’m not sure what that is, but that’s no where near:

Sometimes TuneUp disappoints with results like this.

Even for audio books, I had the same issue. My one audio book of Richard Branson’s autobiography was identified as individual tracks from 22 albums. One of those albums was the correct audio book title, but only two tracks had a Match, the rest were Likely Matches that were most unlike the book in question.

Adding Edward de Bono’s excellent “Think” audio book gave similar results.

Duplicate Sorting

Duplicate sorting is excellent, although if you choose to accept the recommendations, be sure to set aside lots of time to answer the many iTunes dialogue boxes that appear asking: “Are you sure you want to delete the selected item from your iTunes library?”.

De-duplication within TuneUp is excellent, and matches almost exactly with that in iTunes.

For a neat collection (I had 72 duplicates highlighted), that’s not so bad. If it ran to hundreds, it might be soul-destroying to tick yes, and press OK a thousand times.

Album Art Fix

Lastly, TuneUp augments iTunes album art fix with a flexible solution of its own. Several covers are presented for you to select for each album, and whilst this functionality exists within iTunes, there is a quickness achievable as you scroll, select and tick each chosen cover.

Fixing album art provides pretty covers for all your tracks.

There’s nothing quite like an ordered, properly named music collection to put a smile on your face.

Overall

TuneUp promises much, and at times there are flashes of brilliance as random musical mess is neatly tidied, filed and sorted. At other times, there is much waiting around while it processes your selections. When it dies in a heap, though, it becomes insufferable. I have used it on and off now for the past two months whilst writing this review, and I’m sorry to say that my initial excitement and optimism has been dulled considerably.

Proceed with caution if you are thinking of taking the plunge with this app. There is much that has good, or is potentially great, but it’s not all plain sailing.

Read on to find out more!

What’s VSDIF?

VSDIF is rated the best duplicate image finder on major photography and software magazines and technology web sites.

As the name suggests this tool performs a real image analysis. It can find duplicate and similar images regardless of the image format, size, dimensions, colors and other image attributes. Even copies of the same image with modifications applied like color correction, crop, retouching, change of file format or watermarks will still be identified as a duplicate of its original image.

A standard duplicate file finder checks the binary data of the file rather than its visual content and can not identify similar or exact duplicates if they are stored in different file formats. VSDIF supports more than 100 popular image formats including Photoshop PSD and over 300 RAW camera formats.

The main three benefits from using this tool are:

• Organize image collections by identifying similar images
• Save disk space by removing unnecessary duplicate photos
• Search for similar images inside image collections by using a sample image

While VSDIF is extremely precise it is also extremely fast and can handle large photo collections of more than terabyte of images. The scan process is even quicker for the consequential scans as VSDIF can collect data for the scanned images and reuse it for future scans. The cached images are checked for modifications so always the latest version of an image will be compared.

The "Image Search" functionality can find images similar to a sample photo. Combining the Image Search with the cache system VSDIF can scan 10 000 images in seconds. A FREE demo is available for download at the company’s web site.

MindGems Inc. provides also a Duplicate MP3 Finder tool that works in a similar way for audio files and the popular FREE Duplicate File Finder and Folder Size tools that will help with the disk cleanup process.

While the Visual Similarity Duplicate Image Finder PRO costs $39.95 to buy, we have been provided with 10 exclusive PRO licenses for our readers.

How to enter this giveaway?

Visit MindGems Inc and use the share buttons at the top left corner to share it on your favorite social network then drop a comment below. Winners will be chosen on random basis among all the comments. End date for this giveaway is 29th May 2013.

The most recent computer I built, was for a friend who’s brother was heading back to University soon and needed a computer that was extremely good at rendering (as he is studying Design in Uni). We sat down, planned out what the computer needed, and how we could cut costs by buying from individual suppliers instead of buying a computer out-right from our local PC World/Currys, which lead us to making a few shocking discoveries about why building is such a good idea…

Cut Costs

Cutting costs is always high on the agenda of those wanting to buy or build a new computer. It’s common knowledge. No-one wants to spend more than they need to, and why should they? I’ve sat down and compiled a few bits of details for you all that I think you’ll find very interesting:

PC World, one of the leading distributors!

Choice B
A custom built computer, with an Intel Core i5 3330 processor, 8GB DDR3, a 2TB hard drive and a copy of Windows 8 all for £448.95.

Not only does choice B include a better processor (as rated by CPUBenchmark), but it’s also over £200 cheaper! That’s insanity in this day and age that companies, such as HP and PCWorld, charge over £200 just to throw it on the shelves and build it, considering that there are many many tutorials online for building!

However, is it all worth it?

What everyone needs to understand is that the big corporations are out there to make profit and only to do that. Their general support lacks in certain aspects and the delay between repairs can be terrible at times, which has without a doubt put me off over the past few years.

Your personal opinion and knowledge of computers is undoubtedly the key factor when contemplating building a computer, but even visiting your local computer business or forums online based about computers can really benefit your knowledge and bring you towards a greater knowledge aspect of the industry.

The bottom line…

The bottom lime is simple. If you’re comfortable enough to begin process of building, do it. There are many more pros than cons for building your own computer, however if the thought of building reslly does scare you, research it and have a look into it beforehand.