tools

Junko is a free tool that lets you split PDF files into separate documents by page range or number or combine many PDFs into larger files. By splitting large PDFs into multiple smaller files, you can work on just the pages or sections you need, and they're easier for small apps to handle. Combining multiple PDFs is useful for creating manuals and other multipage documents. Junko is powered by PDFsharp, the open-source .NET library of PDF wares.

Junko's interface is very basic and opens with a blank main view, but it's Aero-compatible and has a customizable toolbar. … Read more

Here's some Apple news that has nothing to do with today's Back to Mac announcements: The Dev Team today released PwnageTool 4.1, a jailbreaking app for OS X that allows users of iDevices--iPod Touches, iPads, iPhones--to load custom firmware on their gadgets.

The tool uses a variety of exploits to maintain carrier unlocks on unlocked devices, and works on any device that can run iOS 4.1 (3.2.2 for iPad users). The only devices it doesn't work on are the original iPhone and the first two generations of the iPod Touch, the Dev Team … Read more

Financial software might not be the type of thing to make your knees go weak, but a good program is a control freak's dream come true. Such is the case with Intuit's latest offering in the form of Quicken 2011, which is available starting today in a choice of three versions: Starter Edition ($29.95), Deluxe ($59.95), and Premier ($89.95).

It's immediately apparent that Intuit's acquisition of Mint last year has had a positive effect on the Quicken update. For one, the start-up process has been noticeably streamlined when compared with the previous version. … Read more

PDF files are a part of just about everybody's life now, but many people don't have applications that are capable of doing much with these files besides viewing them. Quick PDF Tools is a small suite of utilities that lets users do more with their PDF files than just look at them. It's not the most feature-filled program we've ever seen, but it's not a bad choice if you're looking to perform a few basic tasks with your PDFs.

The program appears in the Windows context menu, so all you have to do is … Read more

Among the three new features introduced by Facebook last week, one of the last ones to make it to the hands of users was the personal data downloader. It's also one of the most interesting of the bunch, since it effectively gives users an escape hatch to grab everything they've ever uploaded to Facebook and take it elsewhere.

The feature finally went live over the weekend, and I've had a chance to put it through its paces. The good news is that it's one of the simplest options I've ever seen for such a large amount of data. The bad news is that because it's just your information, you may find it's missing a lot of things that include you, but that were uploaded by others.

So what does the service do? It grabs every photo, video, wall post, private message, event, and scrap of profile information from your Facebook account, and puts into a tidy little zip file. In essence, it's your entire Facebook identity in just a folder.

To get this wealth of information, you have to jump through a handful of security hoops. Even if you're signed into Facebook, you need to re-enter your password to request it. Also, if you're on a computer that Facebook is unfamiliar with, it will ask you to solve a captcha. Facebook will then beginning pulling together all those files, which it does in the background, before sending you an e-mail to let you know it's done.

For me, the turnaround time from filling out my information to getting the download link was less than 10 minutes. And the size of the download? 270MB.

Once you have that file in hand, your profile is broken into folders. This includes photos and videos, though unfortunately, this works out a little better for videos than it does for photos.

Every single video I had uploaded was preserved with the exact same file I had uploaded. The photos, on the other hand, had all been run through Facebook's processing, and ran the gamut from 604 pixels wide, to the newer 720 pixel wide format--in either case, that's tiny. The good news is, going forward this won't be as much of a problem, since Facebook recently increased its photo resolution (and thus the preserved file download) to a 2048 pixels wide--an eight-fold increase.

My bigger objection to the process was that some of the original metadata--like when the photo had been taken--gets stripped in the process. Why is this important, you ask? Say you want to stick those photos into a photo management tool, you can no longer sort them by date. The good news on that front is that your collections are preserved as subfolders within the main photos folder, so you have some frame of reference. … Read more

There may be no jet packs yet, but we are very much living in the future. Proof enough of that is PayPal's latest addition to its iPhone app, which brings with it the capability to snap a photo of a check and have it be deposited to your PayPal account free of charge.

Sure, this is something that customers of Chase and USAA have been able to do with each company's respective iPhone applications for months now, but this is PayPal. Why is that important? It means if you've connected your PayPal account to another bank that … Read more

System Information Viewer (SIV) by developer Ray Hinchliffe is a free tool that centralizes all the information about your system that Windows scatters throughout a series of consoles, properties dialogs, and other tools. SIV does more, though, extracting even more useful information than Windows, such as detailed information about your CPU, including each core of multicore processors; networks and clients; hardware sensors; and software.

SIV downloads as a zipped file but needs no installation; the program opens with your system's basic information displayed as soon as you click the extracted executable. This makes the program totally portable, too, so … Read more

If you're looking for a quick, cheap, and easy way to dive into recording audio with Pro Tools, Avid has three new entry-level home studio bundles made just for you.

Each product includes a copy of Pro Tools SE software, which boils down the industry-standard recording software to 16 channels of audio, 10 virtual instrument tracks, one video track, and 3GB of royalty free audio samples and loops.

Depending on your particular recording interest (or budget), you can pick from three hardware options, including a Recording Studio USB audio interface for $119, a Vocal Studio with a USB microphone … Read more

I am always suspicious that those who design surveys are looking for particular, amusing answers.

So I am delighted that those who designed a gadget-conscious study for PC Tools chose to offer respondents some very cerebral choices.

Essentially, PC Tools was looking to see just how deeply the need to be plugged in online had penetrated human psyches. So they willfully probed into scenarios from which others might have shied, which, coincidentally made for a searing analysis into the state of the American nation.

Here is the state of society, neatly encapsulated in one single finding: more people believe that … Read more