tools

There is just no substitute for bandwidth when it comes to Internet speed. Whether it's water or data, the principle is the same: the bigger the pipe, the bigger (and faster) the flow. But that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do on your end to improve your online experience, especially if you're one of the many users still running dial-up connections. If you're trying to squeeze every bit of performance out of your Internet connection, you may want to have a look at Throttle. Throttle offers to maximize your PC's network settings, whether … Read more

Meson Player (32bit, 64bit, Mac)

Meson Player is a tiny music player without a conventional graphical user interface (GUI). The lack of a GUI puts the bulk of the application control in hot keys rather than the usual mouse and click. Using your keyboard's number pad, you can quickly skip tracks, turn volume up or down, and save and open playlists. Meson Player can handle a variety of audio file formats as well as Internet Radio playlists. Meson Player also supports the multimedia keys on some keyboards for advanced functionality.

Barely consuming any system resources, the software leaves a … Read more

A tangram puzzle requires children to move and rotate sharp angled geometric shapes into a specific configuration to match a picture provided. Swipea has created a series of apps that makes these puzzles easier and more accessible for kids, perfect for a young child eager to use your iPad. In the Swipea Tangram Puzzles for Kids: Handy Tools edition (one of more than a dozen variations of the same free app), children will use those shapes to create household tools.

The concept of the game is very simple. Children are given a collection of rectangular and triangular shapes and must … Read more

Computers once had such small memories that Windows couldn't remember where it put its keys without registering them (it still can't, actually), but today's PCs have so much random access memory (RAM) that Windows can do much more than walk and chew gum at the same time, computationally speaking. Plenty of PCs still come up short in the RAM department, though, including a lot of older machines struggling to keep up with today's bloated Web sites and high-quality multimedia. For those PCs, the answer is the same today as it was way back then: a tool … Read more

A crowded hard drive slows you down and stops you from fully enjoying all your favorite programs. Duplicate Cleaner helps you make some more room by removing unnecessary or copied files in bulk. This program delivers exactly what you would expect based on its name, and it does it quickly and effectively. You won't believe how much space it frees up.

The program's slick interface is a welcome change compared to what you might expect from utility programs. Scanning any drive or file location takes only one or two clicks. It only took the program about 90 seconds … Read more

We love utility apps that turn your iPhone into a Swiss Army knife of sorts (well, without the blade). Handy Tools - Ruler gives users a simple ruler for measuring objects on the fly. While not completely accurate, it's a great app for getting approximate measurements.

Handy Tools - Ruler cuts right to the chase and opens with an attractive ruler interface. The ruler has centimeters down one side and inches on the other; a simple tap of the switch button in the lower right corner flips the screen so you don't have to flip your phone. There … Read more

High-quality tax tools don't always come with high prices. Moose-Tech's Schedule D Tax Tool is a standalone tool for generating IRS Schedule D tax data in TXF files that can be imported into major tax preparation software. It can import XLS data and match individual transactions. It doesn't prepare your taxes for you, but it does simplify the process of entering your tax data, which frees you up to focus on more important parts of the whole taxpaying experience.

Schedule D Tax Tool's compact Main Menu offers a gentle reminder to have your personal data ready: &… Read more

Yelp has a new tool in place for business owners to gauge the value of its service.

The company yesterday announced a new tool, called "Revenue Estimate," that helps business owners determine the amount of revenue they're generating from their Yelp listings. The free tool multiplies the number of customer leads from Yelp each month by the company's average revenue per customer lead.

Yelp's Revenue Estimate follows a study released last week by the Boston Consulting Group, which found that local businesses with a free Yelp account saw revenue rise an average of $8,000 … Read more

For average Mac users, the trackpad's default functioning can sometimes be frustrating. BetterTouchTool for Mac allows users to customize the trackpad operation for their whole system or individual applications.

Available as freeware, the program downloaded and installed quickly. After initial startup, BetterTouchTool for Mac attempted to access all of the computers on the test network, which is a strange function for the type of features offered. Lacking instructions, the program was difficult to interpret outside of the main menus, which were featured at the top of the window. The overall appearance of the program is very good, albeit a … Read more