About This Game Pandora: First Contact is a science fiction 4X turn-based strategy game on a planetary scale. In the future, factions have risen up from opportunities and ideologies independent of governments. Private corporations and religious movements have started wars over greed, ideology and power. Many have died and many lands lay in ruin.
Planet Earth has been exhausted and colonial attempts on other planetary bodies have been in vain. Finally, after decades of exploration, an interstellar probe has brought promise of a new world many light-years away. The most powerful factions have gathered their best men and women to send on a long journey to Pandora.
Far from desolate, the earth-like planet has been found to host a plethora of indigenous life forms. While the gigantic monstrosities inland and at the oceans seem relatively calm, human-sized bugs and fungus are threatening to stop mankind's expansion. As the various factions strive to take control, each will research and develop numerous new technologies, discovering new weapons and industry, whilst opening trade agreements and forging alliances with other factions to gain a foothold. As they spread, they will discover ancient ruins from alien civilizations that will grant them advantages over their rivals. Key Features.
Explore a new world harboring a variety of eco-regions, from the frozen ice lands of the north, to vast deserts and lush tropical forests in the south. Survive encounters with the planet's dangerous wild life. Deadly swarms walk the lands and agile predators fly in the skies. There is even talk of a giant creature in the oceans.
Live in harmony with nature or use it to further your cause. The indigenous life will react to your actions and treat you accordingly. Discover ruins and artifacts, the relics of an ancient alien civilization long forgotten that can give you an edge against the planet life and other rivaling factions. Found new cities to expand the borders of your empire. Manage cities by adjusting the tax rate, choosing production and assigning colonists to jobs. Operate a fully globalized and pooled resource and growth system. Specialize one city to harvest minerals while churning out units in another.
Pandora One Desktop App For Mac
Adapt your empire to pressing demand. Your colonists will migrate between cities based on factors such as pollution and living space. Shape the landscape with terraforming, construct farms, mines, forts, and other improvements to increase the productivity of your colonies or to fortify positions. Progress through a vast randomized research tree spanning dozens of technologies providing operations, buildings, units, weapons, and more.
Negotiate trade and research pacts with other factions for mutual benefits. Forge alliances to stand united against common foes. Design your own units by choosing from a range of different classes, armors, weapons, and devices to maximize the strength of your forces. Command vast armies across the battlefield against enemy factions, making use of the variety of terrain types to gain an advantage. Unleash hell on your opponents with powerful military operations, ranging from drop pods behind enemy lines to black hole generators eradicating entire landscapes.
Prove yourself in multiplayer with friends or strangers and discover entirely new strategies. Customize your experience through easily moddable XML data and well-known image and audio formats.
Windows 10 represents a bifurcation of sorts in the free Windows tool ecosystem. Thanks to “Universal Windows Programs,” recommending an essential toolkit of free Windows apps isn’t so universal anymore. Folks opting to stick with Windows 7 and 8.1 will have, and those who embrace Windows 10 - which presents its own priorities, advantages, and quirks - will have another. Windows 10’s unique advantage is its ability to run Universal Windows Programs - formerly known as Metro apps - in their own sandboxed corner of your PC. In theory, UWP/Windows Store apps run on all Windows platforms, including Windows Phone, tablets, and the Xbox. In practice, however, the lines aren't quite so clear.
Plus, the stampede to UWP greatness has yet to materialize. Maybe someday all the truly great Windows programs will run on UWP. For now, well, we’re mostly waiting.
As you’ll see in this list, most outstanding Windows programs still run on the desktop, but there are a handful of up-and-coming UWP/Windows Store apps that deserve your consideration. That’s the beauty of Win10 - mix and match and take advantage of the diversity open to you. Your one-stop shop for Microsoft knowledge:, in a handy PDF. Download it today! Survive and thrive with the new OS:. Stay up on key Microsoft technologies with the. Unless you’re attached to a corporate network with a well-managed Update Server, Windows 10 gives you all of Microsoft’s patches according to Microsoft’s schedule, aka forced updating.
Yes, you can usually keep the reboot limited to a time when you aren’t working, but the patches come whether or not you want them. Worse, if you uninstall a patch, every time you reboot or log on again, the same patch comes barreling at your machine. It’s like Sisyphus 10.0. As long as Microsoft’s patches all work, all of the time, that’s great. But the minute there’s a problem - a driver that doesn’t work right, a cumulative update that refuses to install, a conflict between the patch and one of your programs - forced updating can cause all sorts of problems. Fortunately, Microsoft has created a program that allows you to block and hide specific updates. Wushowhide, known by its cryptic Knowledge Base number, scans to see which updates are pending and lets you hide individual updates.
To use it, head over to KB 307930, download and stick wushowhide.diagcab on your machine. Run wushowhide.diacab, click Hide updates, and you see a list like the one shown in the screenshot above. Check the update(s) you want to forgo, click Next, then Next again. The chosen patch won’t be installed, until Microsoft releases a new version of the patch. Some people slow down updates using a setting called, then wait to run Wushowhide when they hear of updates - either an all-clear, or a botched patch warning.
That gives you somewhat granular control over which patches get applied and when. If you haven’t heard, Windows 10 users can keep full, incremental, easily accessed copies of all of their files with a couple of clicks - using a utility that ships with Windows. Once enabled, Win10’s File History takes snapshots of your files. You can go back to older versions with a simple right-click. To set it up, you need a second hard drive - internal, external, over a network - with enough free space to store your data file backups. Click Start Settings Update & Security Backup.
If “Back up using File History” isn’t set up yet, click the button marked “Add a drive,” and specify which drive you want to use. After the first run, you see the “Automatically back up my files” slider shown in the screenshot. That automatically backs up all of the files in your User folder. You can click on More Options to add more folders. After that, backups happen automagically. To bring back an old version, go into File Explorer, right-click on a file, and choose Properties Previous Versions.
You can get to versions of the files made long, long ago. Microsoft really wants you to use the new Microsoft Edge browser. For some people, Edge may be all the browser you need. For most, Edge doesn’t fill the bill. Many users have grown accustomed to the more-advanced features in other browsers, and for them there’s no substitute for a more mature browser. The main options:, long the top underdog in the browser wars, has pioneered several features not previously seen in competitive browsers, including pop-up blocking, private browsing, and native ad blocking.
It’s now available on Windows, OS X, and Linux. Is an excellent choice if you don’t want to send your browsing history to the folks at Google.
Coupled with a search engine like, which doesn’t track anything, you minimize your trackable presence on the Web. I use Firefox all the time., however, is my browser of choice. In spite of its snooping ways, it has the best collection of extensions, easiest operation, and best integration with Google Apps in the biz. On the downside, if you open a bunch of tabs, it sure sucks up a lot of cycles. Whatever you do, don’t run Internet Explorer. Microsoft has put it out to pasture.
So should you. If you’re in search of the best truly free antivirus tool, look no further than Microsoft’s.
If you’ve installed an antivirus program - or had one installed for you, by your mercenary PC company - uninstall it (Start Settings System Apps & features). If Defender doesn’t immediately spring back to life, in the Cortana search box type “Defender” and press Enter. Other “free” antivirus products come and go - some even score higher on the prestigious list. Defender isn’t the fanciest or most aggressive AV product available.
It’s reliable, simple, boring, fast, easy to use, and most of all, free. It's always free and never nags for more money. I use religiously, in all of my browsers, on all of my computers - Windows, Android, iOS, ChromeOS, Mac, you name it.
LastPass keeps track of your user IDs, passwords, and other settings, stores them in the cloud, and offers them to you with a click. LastPass does its AES-256 encrypting and decrypting on your PC, using a master password you have to remember. The data stored in the cloud is encrypted, and without the key the stored passwords can’t be broken, unless you know somebody who can crack AES-256 encryption.
In addition to installing the LastPass browser extension for all of my browsers, I also use the UWP/Windows Store version, shown in this screenshot, on my Windows 10 machines. It’s much easier to edit entries with the UWP/Windows Store version than with the odd click-here-then-there editing interface inside the browsers. If you’re using Windows 10 for anything more than a doorstop, you’re no doubt familiar with cloud storage.
I prefer the desktop version of, which integrates directly into File Manager. (The UWP/Windows Store version, at this point, isn’t worth the bother.) Everybody and his brother wants to offer you free cloud storage these days. They’re gambling that you’ll get hooked on the service and want to stay and pay.
I’ve never gone over my limit with any of the services - Dropbox (2GB free for personal use, unlimited business use for $12.50 per user per month), Microsoft’s (5GB free for personal use, many other options), (15GB free for personal use), (50GB free), (10GB free) - I use them all, in various ways. Thumbnail comparison: Dropbox syncs with your computer remarkably well; for all intents, it works like a File Manager folder (see screenshot).
It features solid security, easy operation, amazing reliability, and integration with many programs (including Office). The current version of OneDrive has all sorts of implementation and interface problems, reliability is a major concern, and Microsoft has already reneged on storage promises.
Google Drive space gets swallowed up by saved Gmail attachments, but the tools are best of breed. I use Google Drive for photos - see my later recommendation. Mega is excellent, supersecure, somewhat limited features, but getting better. Box rates as the sine qua non of corporate storage, but it’s limited for freeloaders. Like you, I spent years struggling with PC-based email: Outlook, in multitudinous versions; Outlook Express (which isn’t anything like Outlook itself); Windows Mail; Windows Live Mail; Thunderbird. I can’t recall how many months I’ve lost trying to hassle with files, settings, quirks, and bugs.
If you haven’t yet moved your mail to the cloud, it’s time to take a look. Although you have to jump through a few hoops, it’s relatively easy to keep your email address ([email protected]) and push everything through - and nobody will ever know the difference. All of the email services are free for personal use, and come attached to more expensive packages (Google Apps for Business, Outlook 365, among others) for organizations.
Flipping to online email will add years to your life. The only real question is which service you should use.
The two front-runners, Gmail and (formerly Hotmail) have pros and cons, with features in one showing up in the other sooner or later. Both have so many capabilities that nobody uses more than a tiny fraction. There’s no clear winner. Personally, I use Gmail - and have for years - because it’s better organized (which is a simple way to say I’m used to it), it does a better job of trapping spam headed my way, separating “Important” messages from “Everything else” simplifies cleanup, and the tabs help occasionally. By saying Outlook.com doesn’t serve ads targeted based on email contents (though they do serve up targeted ads), they have inbox organization by custom categories, there are time-based rules, and Outlook.com makes it easy to connect to Skype, Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn.
While the titans rage for paid online “office productivity” packages - we’ll look at Office 365 and Google Apps for Business in a future review - those seeking free-for-personal-use productivity programs have two excellent choices, from those same two titans. Is so good, you’ll be hard-pressed to find features in the paid programs that aren’t available online for free. Google Apps work well, too, but Office Online’s features and rock-solid compatibility with desktop Office programs run way out ahead of the competition. Both run inside your favorite Web browser. The big trick? You have to understand that there is a free Office Online, it’s remarkably full-featured, and you don’t need to sign up for a free trial of anything (though you will need a free Microsoft Account). To get started, go to the, avoid the temptation to sign up for an Office 365 free trial at the top, and look further down for the free online apps.
If you’re a professional photographer who requires fancy touch-up tools and extremely high-definition archival storage or you have to set up paid downloading services, you need something more capable. But for almost everybody, is a category killer. There’s rarely been a program, of any kind, with such broad appeal. There’s free unlimited storage, although pictures are limited to 16 megapixels and video to 1080p (the program will automatically squeeze bigger pictures, or you can pay for Google Drive storage space for the biggies). Yes, free - unlimited with apps for iOS, Android, and all the major browsers on any platform.
You can set Google Photos to automatically upload pics from your phone or Wi-Fi-enabled camera. Once they’re on Google’s servers, you can get at them from anywhere with your Google ID and password. Google Photos automatically analyzes every picture. Face recognition is built in (but can be turned off). The organization and analytical capabilities are breathtaking - “All the pictures of me holding a beer glass” or “Every picture we took of the pyramids.” Photos even offers to create montages, panoramas, storylines, or “animations” of similar pictures taken in succession. Of course, Google keeps track of everything you post, and uses the info to serve up ads, but that's the price you pay. When you start looking at desktop applications, your very first stop should be to.
Simply click on the applications you want and Ninite will download the latest version, absolutely free of crapware, install them, and leave you in the driver’s seat. Need to update your apps? Run Ninite again. (Or rely on Secunia PSI, coming up next.) The beauty of the Ninite approach? All of these apps are a click away, no fuss, no nags, no charge.
It’s the best way I know to install a bunch of good programs on a new machine in a few minutes. The downside? It misses a few of my favorite desktop apps - and it doesn’t touch UWP/Windows Store “Metro” apps. A key component in keeping your system up-to-date, scans every desktop program on your computer and tells you in no uncertain terms if you have any wayward programs that haven’t been patched. Gcos 1.5 gamecube. (Secunia PSI doesn’t scan for UWP/Microsoft Store programs - which should be updated automatically by the Store.) You can tell Secunia PSI to automatically keep your programs updated, and unless some sort of odd manual intervention is required (such as “Select language”), everything gets patched behind the scenes. I particularly appreciate the fact that PSI respects my Windows Update settings - so while I have everything else updated automatically, it lets me install Microsoft patches on my own schedule, using wushowhide. Free PSI is for personal use; CSI corporate editions are also available.
No doubt you already have an antivirus program. I use, and recommend, Windows Defender, which comes baked into Windows 10. It’s good enough, and it’ll never beg you for more money.
Is different. The free-for-personal-use version is designed to run manually - I run mine once a week. Malwarebytes picks up all sorts of creepy crawlies that get past AV programs, and it’s surprisingly adept at running even if your machine is already infected.
When combined with the support on the Malwarebytes forum, Malwarebytes is the ultimate fallback for infected systems - whether or not you know they’re infected. Another poster child for open source software, plays almost anything - including YouTube Flash FLV files - with no additional software, no downloads, no headaches. I use it exclusively for videos - but only the desktop version.
The UWP/Windows Store version, at this point, has all sorts of problems. Unlike other media players, VLC sports simple, Spartan controls, built-in codecs for almost every file type imaginable, and a large and vocal online support community. VLC plays Internet streaming media with a click, records played media, converts between file types, and even supports individual-frame screenshots. VLC is well-known for tolerating incomplete or damaged media files. It will even start to play downloaded media before the download’s finished. The desktop version’s available via Ninite.
There’s an up-and-comer called that’s a strong contender. Want to try an alternative to VLC? Give it a look. UWP/Windows Store media players still have a way to go. Nobody uses Notepad any more.
Even with all of the fantastic new brightly colored file formats running around today, everybody, sooner or later, needs a text editor. Let’s hear it for. With tabs, undo/redo, Unicode support, cut copy and paste, search and replace, all in a svelte and fast package, EditPad Lite works wonders. Free for personal use, the pro/corporate package costs as little as $9 per user. Pay for the product and you get a spell-checker. I have a confession to make. My text editor of choice is.
I’ve been using it for years, and I’ve tailored it to do exactly what I need. My fingers know exactly where to go. For most people, though, Notepad is overkill. (If you have to write native HTML, it’s great.) EditPad and EditPad Lite are the way to go, and they're available through Ninite. With dozens of good - even great - free image editors around, it’s hard to pick one above the others.
Is a surprisingly full-featured, free photo editor from Autodesk. Has tremendous viewing, organizing, and resizing capabilities. For powerful, easy-to-use photo editing, with layers, plug-ins, and all sorts of special effects, along with a compact and easily understood interface, I’ll stick with. Although it requires Windows’ hard-to-keep-updated.Net Framework, the program puts all of the editing tools a nonprofessional might reasonably expect into a remarkably intuitive package. There’s a trick to installing Paint.net. If you go to the company’s website, you’re faced with a daunting array of junk-filled download sites.
Instead, use Ninite (mentioned earlier) to download a clean copy: choose both.Net Framework (it’s under Runtimes) and Paint.Net. Every desktop user needs.
While Win10 File Explorer has grown the ability to look inside ISO and other kinds of compressed files, Explorer still doesn’t support RAR compressed files, which are becoming more and more common as use of Macs is on the rise. 7-Zip also creates password-protected Zip files, as well as self-extracting Zips. You don’t need to register or pay for 7-Zip.
Don’t fall for a website with a similar name. To get the real, original, one and only free 7-Zip, with a crapware-free installer, go to or, better, get it from Ninite. There’s support on the. Make sure you get the desktop version - UWP/Windows Store programs with similar names aren’t the same. It's free for everybody and open source. Microsoft’s venerable and free-as-a-breeze finds more autostarting programs (add-ins, drivers, codecs, gadgets, shell extensions, whatever), in more obscure places, than any other program, anywhere. AutoRuns not only lists autorunning programs, it lets you turn individual programs off.
There are many minor features, including the ability to filter out Microsoft-signed programs, a quick way to jump to folders holding autostarting programs, and a command-line version that lets you display file hashes. AutoRuns doesn’t require installation. It’s a program that runs and collects its information, displays it (with a rather rudimentary user interface), lets you wrangle with your system, then fades away.
It's free for everybody, personal or corporate. Tells you which files are currently open by what program. That feature alone has saved me half a head of hair because, once identified by Process Explorer, the process that has locked up your file can be killed. Process Explorer also gives you full information on all of the svchost processes running on your PC. That accounts for the other half a head.
Mouse over a process, even a generic svchost, and you can see the command line that launched the process, the path to the executable file, and all of the Windows services being used. Right-click and you can go online to get more information about the executable. It's another must-have product from, yes, Microsoft and free for everybody.
If you’re curious about the hardware that beats inside your system, do I have a utility for you. Delves into every nook and cranny. From the summary (shown here) to detailed Device Manager-style trees of information - entire forests of information - HWiNFO can tell you everything anyone could want to know about your machine. There’s a separate real-time monitoring panel, which tells you the current status of everything under the sun: Temperatures, speeds, usage, clocks, voltages, wattages, hard drive SMART stats, read rates, write rates, GPU load, network throughput, and on and on. It’s free for everybody. (I downloaded a clean copy from.).
If you aren’t yet using torrents, now’s the time to start. It’s simple (no Java, no.Net), fast, and easy to use, and it supports magnet links (which really simplify downloads), with extensive bandwidth reporting and management. There's no spyware, no adware, and no nonsense.
There are good visual tools for monitoring bandwidth and throttling if need be - or blast your connection wide open and let ’er rip. With Tixati it’s easy, and you don’t have to worry about all the garbage that’s frequently associated with torrent handlers. Well and truly uninstalls desktop programs, and it does so in an unexpected way. (To get rid of a UWP/Windows Store app, you have to use Win10 itself with, for example, Start Settings System Apps & features.) When you use Revo, it runs the program’s uninstaller and watches while the uninstaller works, looking for the location of program files and for Registry keys that the uninstaller zaps.
It then goes in and removes leftover pieces, based on the locations and keys that the program’s uninstaller took out. Revo also consults its own internal database for commonly left-behind bits and roots those out. The not-free Pro version monitors your system when you install a program, making removal easier and more complete. Pro will also uninstall remnants of programs that have already been uninstalled.
Get it from Ninite. I’ve tried Skype so many times - and been so frustrated with it - that you couldn’t get me to go back to Microsoft’s product for all the tea in Asia. Come to think of it, that's where I first found. If you know people in Asia, chances are very good they already have it and depend on it.
LINE may be the most popular online calling/messaging program in the world. LINE covers the gamut from plain old phone calls to text, images, video, and audio - including audio messages.
It’s completely free, and it runs on anything, including Android, iPad and iPhone, Mac OS X, ChromeOS (which is to say, on Chromebooks). The Windows Store UWP app is brilliant, stable, and eminently usable.
LINE makes its money by selling zillions of sets of emojis and “stickers.” Right now, more than a billion stickers are sent every day. LINE has one significant limitation: When you create a new account, it can only be used on at most one mobile device and one PC. If you want to run LINE on two Windows desktops, you have to sign up for two (free) accounts. If you have an account on Pandora, you have everything you need for Elpis.
Although it looks like a UWP/Windows Store program, in fact it’s a plain old desktop app, designed to stream directly from Pandora. You don’t have to run Pandora in a Web browser any more - Elpis will go grab the stream for you.
Free, open source, with most of the features you expect from Pandora, Elpis doesn’t nag you with the “Are you listening?” notices that make Pandora so, er, challenging. Note well, from the distribution documentation: “Elpis (as well as its libraries) and its creator are not affiliated with or endorsed by Pandora Media, Inc. As such, Elpis depends on an independent implementation of their private API, meaning that changes made by Pandora can, and may, break compatibility with Elpis at any time, without warning.” Look for the latest release on the. Microsoft liked it so much, it bought the company. I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to turn other tools into to-do lists: Google Calendar, Outlook, even Word and Email. I always end up with duplicated entries, lengthy messes - and heaven help me if I want to update the list from my PC, my phone, and my iPad, or share it with someone.
That’s where takes the cake. I can create a shopping list and share it with other members of the household. I can make a to-do list and stare in wonder as it backs up weeks, months, even years of overdue tasks. There are due dates and automatically generated reminders.
I can even assign a task to someone else, and keep track of whether they’re on task or comatose. Get it for Windows 10, for your tablets and phones of any pedigree - even your Mac, Kindle Fire, or Chromebook. If you prefer to run it inside a browser, yep, Wunderlist is there, too. I’ve used a lot of screen grabbers over the years, but never a free grabber in this league. Windows 10 has a reasonably capable Snipping Tool, now that there’s a countdown timer. Runs rings around it in every imaginable respect.
It’s free, open source, easy to install and use, with optional hot keys. You can shoot rectangular selections, the currently active window, polygons, record the screen, or record scrolling windows. ShareX will automatically save your file to a designated location and/or to the cloud (Dropbox, Pastebin, Imgur, many more). It has a full set of annotation tools, image editor, QR code generator, watermarking, and so many other features you could make a career out of customizing it.
It's very fast, very small, and very free, with no ads - an amazing piece of software overall.
I’ve long recommended the free as your one-stop shop for desktop applications. Simply click on the applications you want and Ninite will download the latest version, absolutely free of crapware, install them, and leave you in the driver’s seat. As we went to press, Ninite supported 87 different Windows programs ( in the paid version, $50 per month for up to 25 machines). The beauty of the Ninite approach?
Each app is a click away: no fuss, no nags, no charge. It’s the best way I know to install a bunch of good programs on a new machine in minutes. The downside? It misses a few of my favorites—and it doesn’t touch UWP/Windows Store “Metro” apps.
I used to recommend Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) for ensuring that installed programs are up-to-date. I’ve switched to Ninite’s $10-per-year.
It works better. While you can manually run the free Ninite anytime and the latest versions of your apps get installed, Ninite Updater proactively watches your installed programs and warns of any available updates. Ninite Updater even works with programs that you installed manually—as long as they’re among the apps. Unless you’re attached to a corporate network with a well-managed Update Server, Win10 will give you all of Microsoft’s patches, according to Microsoft’s schedule. You can usually keep the reboot limited to a time when you aren’t working, but the patches come whether you want ’em or not. Worse, if you uninstall a patch, every time you reboot or log on again, the same patch comes barreling at your machine. It’s like Sisyphus 10.0.
As long as Microsoft’s patches, that’s great. But the minute there’s a problem—a faulty driver, a cumulative update that refuses to install, a conflict between the patch and one of your programs—forced updating can cause mayhem. Fortunately, Microsoft has a program that allows you to block and hide specific updates. Wushowhide, known by its cryptic Knowledge Base number KB 307930, scans to see which updates are pending and lets you hide individual updates. To use it, head over to, then download and stick wushowhide.diagcab on your machine. Next, follow these steps precisely: 1. Run wushowhide.diacab.
This part’s important: Click the link marked Advanced. Uncheck the box marked 'Apply repairs automatically.' Wushowhide will run for a long time. When it comes back up for air, click the link to Hide Updates. You see a list like the one in the screenshot.
Check the update(s) you want to avoid, click Next, then Next again. The chosen patch(es) won’t be installed, until you go back and uncheck it. Depending on your version of Win10, you may have options to slow down updates. No matter what Win10 says, this tool will block an update dead in its tracks—but watch out. If Microsoft releases a new version of a patch, it’ll switch off the “hidden” checkmark, so you have to go back and hide it again.
I’m forever amazed at how many Win10 users don’t know they can keep full, incremental, accessible copies of their files with a couple of clicks using a utility that ships with Windows. Once enabled, Win10’s File History takes snapshots of your files, allowing you to go back to older versions with a right-click. You need a second hard drive—internal, external, or over a network—with enough free space to store your backups. Click Start Settings Update & Security Backup. If “Back up using File History” isn’t set up yet, click the button marked Add a Drive to specify your target backup drive. After the first run, you see the “Automatically back up my files” slider (screenshot), which automatically backs up all the files in your User folder.
You can click on More Options to add more folders. After that, backups happen automagically. To bring back an old version, go to File Explorer, right-click a file, and choose Properties Previous Versions. You can get to versions of the files made long, long ago. Every desktop user needs. While Win10 File Explorer now has the ability to look inside ISO and other kinds of compressed files, Explorer still doesn’t support RAR compressed files or MSU Windows installer files (screenshot). 7-Zip also creates password-protected Zip files, as well as self-extracting Zips.
You don’t need to register or pay for 7-Zip. Don’t fall for a website with a similar name. To get the real, original, and only free 7-Zip, with a crapware-free installer, go to or, better, get it from Ninite. There’s support on the. Make sure you get the desktop version; UWP/Windows Store programs with similar names aren’t the same.
Free for everybody. File undelete has been a mainstay PC utility since DOS. But there's no better undeleter than (pronounced 'recover'): fast, thorough, free. When you empty the Windows Recycle Bin, files aren't destroyed; rather, the space they occupy is earmarked for new data. If you delete files on a USB drive (screenshot) or an SD card, they’re treated similarly, without the Recycle Bin as a safeguard.
If you delete files on an SD card using a phone or tablet, heaven help ya! That’s where Recuva (free for personal use, $35 each for ) comes in. Undelete routines scan the flotsam and put the pieces back together. As long as you haven't added new data to a drive, undelete (almost) always works; if you've added some data, there's still a good chance you can get back most of the deleted stuff. With more than a dozen competing tools available for examining the innards of your machine, coming up with the “best” revolves around what you need and what you expect. I’ve long recommended and, but of late I’ve settled on (free for everybody).
Like other hardware/software scanners, Speccy ferrets out all sorts of information, including real-time monitoring of internal temperatures, and a full SMART status report for each drive. The operating system report for Win10 includes details such as your Windows Update status, antivirus in use, scheduled tasks,.Net Framework versions installed, and much more. Unlike other examining programs, Speccy makes it easy to output reports, including free website posting. Speccy can be installed, or it can be run “portable” with no installation required.
Both Speccy and Recuva (preceding slide) are made by Piriform, which also CCleaner. I don’t recommend because many people use it to clean their registries—and some rue the day they did.
I realize that’s a religious statement open to debate, but I firmly believe the potential downside to using a registry cleaner far exceed the potential upside of cleaning out a few KB of aberrant entries here and there. If you use CCleaner for one of its many other features and studiously avoid registry cleaning, it’s a good one to add to your arsenal.
Well and truly uninstalls desktop programs, and it does so in an unexpected manner. (To get rid of a UWP/Windows Store app, you have to use Win10 itself with, for example, Start Settings System Apps & Features.) When you use Revo, it runs the program’s uninstaller and watches while the uninstaller works, looking for the location of program files and for Registry keys that the uninstaller zaps. It then goes in and removes leftover pieces, based on the locations and keys that the program’s uninstaller took out.
Revo will also uninstall remnants of programs that have already been uninstalled. Revo consults its own internal database for commonly-left-behind bits and roots those out as well. The not-free version (from $40 but frequently discounted) monitors your system when you install a program, making removal easier and more complete. It also pushes harder to remove bits and pieces of programs that leave detritus behind when they’re uninstalled. Get it from Ninite. Windows 7 had a decent—but not perfect—backup and restore function.
Win8.1 threw it all away. Win10 has brought it back, but many people complain about it.
You can see the old Win7 backup in Win10 by typing backup in the Cortana search box. Microsoft wants you to use its new backup method, stick everything on OneDrive, and use Refresh/Restore should the proverbial hit the impeller.
But many people aren’t comfortable with that approach, for many reasons, ranging from privacy concerns to the infernal requirement that you maintain installation media for all of your non-Microsoft programs. I’ve gone through lots of backup programs over the years: Norton Ghost, Comodo Backup, Macrium Reflect, Aomei Backupper, Clonezilla, and many more. They all have good and bad points.
I’ve settled on and use its free edition. EaseUS, based in Shenzhen, has an easily skipped Amazon link in its installer, and it tries to upsell you to the ($23 or $31, including free lifetime upgrades). If you’re careful installing it, you’ll end up with a nimble, general-purpose backup tool that can create full disk image backups, incremental drive or file backups, and/or differential (“store the deltas”) backups per your specs.
By default, it runs full backups once a week, with differential backups every 30 minutes. You won’t get Outlook email backups unless you pay for one of the not-so-free versions. I first used EaseUS to swap out my C: drive to an SSD. It worked well and was reasonably easy to decipher, so I recommended it to the crowd on.
Positive reports all around. Remember that backing up is only half the battle.
You need to test the backup to make sure it works. Swapping out a SSD is a great test for full-disk backups, but it doesn’t tackle the thorny problem of incremental backups. I still use File History (recommendation No. 3) as a safety net.
Microsoft’s venerable and free-as-a-breeze finds more autostarting programs (add-ins, drivers, codecs, gadgets, shell extensions, whatever), in more obscure places, than any other program, anywhere. Autoruns not only lists autorunning programs, it lets you turn off individual programs. There are many minor features, including the ability to filter out Microsoft-signed programs, a quick way to jump to folders holding autostarting programs, and a command-line version that lets you display file hashes. Autoruns doesn’t require installation.
It’s a program that runs and collects its information, displays it (with a rather rudimentary user interface), lets you wrangle with your system, then fades away. Free for everybody, personal or corporate. Tells you which files are currently open by what program. That feature alone has saved me half a head of hair because, once identified by Process Explorer, the process that has locked up your file can be killed. Process Explorer also gives you full information on all the svchost processes running on your PC. That accounts for the other half a head.
Mouse over a process, even a generic svchost, and you can see the command line that launched the process, the path to the executable file, and all of the Windows services in use. Right-click and you can go online to get more information about the executable. Another must-have product from, yes, Microsoft. Free for everybody. Where does all the drive space go? Pick up a free copy of, and find out—quickly and accurately.
You can use the file explorer-style view at the top to navigate among your most ponderous folders, or you can click on individual files in the decidedly more colorful “tree map” usage pane. Delete files directly from WinDirStat, or fire up File Explorer to delete from a more traditional point of view.
Free, open source, fast, bulletproof. Nothing to install. Meaningful Help info. What more could you ask for? Get it on Ninite.
I’ve long used—and recommended—Microsoft’s built-in Windows Defender as the only antivirus software you’ll ever need. Unfortunately, recent tests I trust, particularly the from October 2016, show Microsoft Defender at the bottom of the pack. There are several free-for-personal-use antivirus products worthy of your attention: Avast Free, Avira Free, AVG Free, and Bitdefender Free are the best known.
All of them except Bitdefender are available on Ninite. I don’t recommend any of them. Your antivirus product watches everything you do. Some—perhaps all—of the free antivirus packages track your activity, and the vendor sells your history to advertisers. AVG in late 2015 and Avast’s privacy policy has. They’re all suspect.
I use Win10 all the time, so I’ve resigned myself to the fact that Microsoft snoops on my computer from bootup to shutdown—and maybe other times. (Hello, Cortana!) Windows Defender isn’t going to tell Microsoft much more than it already knows. Defender is moderately competent, and it won’t bug me about paying for an upgrade or hijack my browser’s search engine. The others may.
Defender’s a better-the-devil-ye-ken choice. No doubt you already have an antivirus program. As mentioned in the previous slide, I use Windows Defender, which comes baked into Win10, but there are many good alternatives.
Malwarebytes is different. The free-for-personal-use version is designed to be run manually; I run mine once a week. Malwarebytes picks up all sorts of creepy crawlies that get past AV programs, and it’s surprisingly adept at running even if your machine is already infected. When combined with the support on the Malwarebytes forum, Malwarebytes is the ultimate fallback for infected systems—whether you know they’re infected or not. Get it on Ninite.
Microsoft wants you to use its new Edge browser. For some, Edge may be all you need. For most, Edge doesn’t fill the bill. If you’ve grown accustomed to the more-advanced features in other browsers, Edge won’t be an adequate substitute. Your main options:. Opera, long the top underdog in the browser wars, has pioneered several features not previously seen in competitive browsers, including pop-up blocking, private browsing, and native ad blocking.
It’s now available on Windows, OS X, and Linux. Firefox is an excellent choice if you don’t want to send your browsing history to the folks at Google. Coupled with a search engine like or, which don’t track anything, you minimize your trackable presence on the web. I use Firefox all the time. Chrome is my browser of choice. In spite of its snooping ways, it has the best collection of extensions, easiest operation, and best integration with Google Apps in the biz.
On the downside, if you open a bunch of tabs, it sure sucks up a lot of cycles. Whatever you do, don’t run Internet Explorer. Microsoft has put it out to pasture. So should you. Pick ’n’ choose on Ninite. I use religiously, in all my browsers, on all my computers: Windows, Android, iOS, ChromeOS, Mac, you name it. LastPass keeps track of your user IDs, passwords, and other settings; stores them in the cloud; and offers them to you with a click.
LastPass does its one-way salted AES-256 encrypting and decrypting on your PC, using a master password you have to remember. The data that gets stored in the cloud is encrypted, and without the key the stored passwords can’t be broken, unless you know somebody who can crack AES-256 encryption. Call the midwife christmas special rapidshare download. In addition to installing the LastPass browser extension for all of my browsers, I use the UWP/Windows Store version (screenshot) on my Windows 10 machines. It’s much easier to edit entries with the UWP/Windows Store version than with the odd click-here-then-there editing interface inside browsers.
If you’re using Win10 for anything more than a doorstop, you’re no doubt familiar with cloud storage. I prefer the desktop version of Dropbox, which integrates into File Manager. (The UWP/Windows Store version, at this point, isn’t worth the bother.) Everybody and his brother wants to offer you free cloud storage these days. They’re gambling that you’ll get hooked on the service, and later pay to stay. I’ve never gone over my limit with any of the services— (2GB free for personal use, unlimited business use for $12.50 per user per month), Microsoft’s (5GB free for personal use, many other options), (15GB free for personal use), (50GB free), (10GB free)—and I use them all, in various ways. Thumbnail comparison: Dropbox syncs with your computer remarkably well; for all intents, it works exactly like a File Manager folder (see screenshot), with solid security, easy operation, amazing reliability, and integration with many programs (including Office).
The current version of OneDrive has all sorts of implementation and interface problems, reliability is a major concern, and Microsoft has already reneged on storage promises. Google Drive space gets swallowed up by saved Gmail attachments, but the tools are best of breed. I use Google Drive for photos (see my later recommendation). Mega is excellent, supersecure, somewhat limited in features, but is getting better. Box rates as the sine qua non of corporate storage, but it’s limited for freeloaders. Get it on Ninite.
Like you, I spent years struggling with PC-based email: Outlook, in multitudinous versions; Outlook Express (which isn’t anything like Outlook itself); Windows Mail; Windows Live Mail; Thunderbird. I can’t recall how many months I’ve lost hassling with files, settings, quirks, and bugs. If you haven’t moved your mail to the cloud, it’s time to take a look.
You have to jump through a few hoops, but it’s relatively easy to keep your email address ([email protected]) and push everything through Gmail—and nobody will know the difference. All the email services are free for personal use and come attached to more expensive packages (Google Apps for Business, Outlook 365, among others) for organizations. Flipping to online email will add years to your life. The only question is which service to use.
The front-runners, Gmail and (formerly Hotmail) have pros and cons, with features in one showing up in the other sooner or later. Both have so many capabilities that nobody uses more than a tiny fraction. There’s no clear winner. Personally, I use Gmail—and have done so for years—because it’s better organized (which is a simple way to say that I’m used to it); it does a better job of trapping spam headed my way, separating “Important” messages from “Everything else” simplifies cleanup; and the tabs help occasionally.
Microsoft counters by saying doesn’t serve ads targeted based on email content (though they serve targeted ads), they have inbox organization by custom categories, there are time-based rules, and makes it easy to connect to Skype, Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn. Log on to from any computer. While the titans rage for paid online “office productivity” packages, those seeking free-for-personal-use productivity programs have two excellent choices from those same two titans. Office Online is so good, you’ll be hard-pressed to find features in the paid programs that aren’t available online for free. Google’s G Suite works well, too, but Office Online’s features and rock-solid compatibility with desktop Office programs run way out ahead of the competition. Both run inside your favorite web browser. Galen Gruman has, with conclusions that apply to Office Online in many cases.
The big trick? You have to understand there is a free Office Online, it’s remarkably fully featured, and you don’t need to sign up for a free trial of anything (although you need a free Microsoft Account). To get started, go to the, avoid the temptation to sign up for an Office 365 free trial at the top, and look further down for the free online apps. If you are a professional photographer, need fancy touch-up tools and extremely high-definition archival storage, or have to set up paid downloading services, you need a more capable option. But for almost everybody, is a category killer. There’s rarely been a program, of any kind, with such broad appeal.
There’s free unlimited storage, although pictures are limited to 16 megapixels and video to 1080p (the program will automatically squeeze bigger pictures, or you can pay for Google Drive storage space for the biggies). Apps for iOS, Android, and all the major browsers on any platform. You can set Google Photos to automatically upload pics from your phone or Wi-Fi-enabled camera. Once they’re on Google’s servers, you can get at them from anywhere with your Google ID and password.
Google Photos automatically analyzes every picture. Face recognition is built in (though it can be turned off). The organization and analytical capabilities are breathtaking: “All the pictures of me holding a beer glass” or “Every picture we took of the pyramids.” Photos even offers to create montages, panoramas, storylines, or “animations” of similar pictures taken in succession. Of course, Google keeps track of everything you post and uses the info to serve ads, but that's the price you pay. Another poster child for open source software, VLC Media Player plays nearly anything—including YouTube Flash FLV files—with no additional software, no downloads, no headaches. I use it exclusively for videos, but I only use the desktop version.
The UWP/Windows Store version, at this point, has all sorts of problems. Unlike other media players, VLC sports simple, Spartan controls, built-in codecs for almost every file type imaginable, and a large and vocal online support community. VLC plays internet streaming media with a click, records played media, converts between file types, and even supports individual frame screenshots.
Tired of the sell, sell, sell in Win10’s built-in Groove Music or Movies & TV? Can’t get your oddball files to play in Win10’s apps?
Take a look at VLC. VLC is well-known for tolerating incomplete or damaged media files. It will even start to play downloaded media before the download’s finished. The desktop version is available via Ninite. Get it on Ninite.
If you look at Foobar2000 on its face, you won’t see much: a player that doesn’t meet the standards of VLC Media Player and a clunky interface. But underneath the surface, a whole geeky world unfolds: heavy-duty metadata editing tools; batch and command-line processing; user-programmable functions; a huge collection of plugins. There’s even a Title Formatting feature with an associated database-style Query Syntax. It’s a programmer’s music organizer. Foobar has a Universal Windows app called Foobar 2000 Mobile. You might want to try it, but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t have many of the options you’d like.
Get the regular Windows app on Ninite. Plex is the answer to all sorts of problems I’ve had forever with using a Windows network to store movies, music, and recorded TV. I use it with a Roku on my TVs. I use it on my Chromebooks, iPads, even my Android phone. In short, any computer I have around the house can tap into my movie, TV, or music collection. I can even get at those media files from anyplace with an internet connection.
Logitech” Cordless Keyboards/. User's Guide. Between the equipment and the receiver; 3) connect the equipment to an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected; 4) consult the dealer or an. This device complies with RSS-210 of Industry and Science Canada. Operation is. Logitech Unifying Software. Lets you add and remove devices that use a Unifying receiver. Download Now. Connection Utility for Logitech Cordless 2.4 GHz Presenter™. Download Now. LogiBind Connect Utilities for Office Cordless Desktop 2.4GHz. Keyboard, Mouse. Download Now. Logitech assumes no responsibility for any errors that may appear in this manual. Information contained. 2) increase the separation between the equipment and the receiver; 3) connect the equipment to an outlet on a circuit different from that to which. This device complies with RSS-210 of Industry and Science Canada. Logitech cordless desktop receiver canada 210 manual. STILL HAVING PROBLEMS? The community might have the answer. SUPPORT COMMUNITY Contact Us. Logitech Support. Support home Downloads & Apps Spare Parts MyHarmony Support Ultimate Ears Support Community Forums Compliance certificates Warranty Information Privacy + Security Contact Us. Aug 31, 2014 - prod-img. Cordless Rechargeable Desktop Model Number: Y-RK49;M-RAK89D;C-BO33. The connection between the mouse or keyboard and the receiver can be lost for several reasons, such as: Low battery. Plug your receiver directly and securely into a working port (USB or PS/2) on your computer.
If that sounds like magic, it is. And it’s getting better all the time. Setting up and running Plex is an absolute breeze. Download the (the server) and install it on your PC (Windows, MacOS, Linux, some NAS servers).
Point it to your media files. Then you can watch or listen to all your shows/music on the computer that’s acting as the server. But—here’s the magic—you can install a Plex player program on your tablets, phones, game boxes like an Xbox or PlayStation, and as long as they’re attached to the same network as the server, you get immediate access to all of the media. It's like falling off a log. There’s more. Roku picks up the Plex channel immediately. Apple TV, same thing.
Some TVs now have Plex built-in. And you can connect to Plex remotely from anywhere in the world, any browser you like, using a simple password. It works better than any networking system I’ve ever used. Best of all, it’s free, although the. Add syncing to mobile devices and storage in the cloud, and it’ll cost you $5 a year for Plex Pass. The music streaming industry remains highly competitive. Between Amazon Music Prime (free if you’re already a Prime member), Apple Music (three-month free trial, then $10 per month), Pandora (free with ads), Spotify (free with ads, $10 per month no ads), and a dozen more, you’ll find an enormous array of music available for any platform, any time.
Debatably, Spotify remains the best deal for cheapskates: 30 million songs, easy interface, any platform you can mention, top-quality curated playlists, news, weather—even a social platform that lets you eavesdrop on friends. With 50 million or so free users and 50 million more who pony up $10 per month, Spotify has become an 800-pound gorilla in the genre. Competition in the music space remains cutthroat. Apple Music, for example, for a two-week exclusive right to play Chance the Rapper’s new release 'Coloring Book.' The big question hanging over Spotify right now has more to do with business than with tunes—if there’s a difference. Several high-profile artists, including Taylor Swift, have from Spotify, leading the company to consider limiting some of its music to paid subscribers only. Get the desktop program from Ninite.
Windows doesn’t rip DVDs—period. While you’re bound to get 100 different opinions from any collection of a dozen different RIAA lawyers, ripping DVDs for your own use (say, to play them from a computer that doesn’t have a DVD player or to keep your three-year-old’s fingers off the shiny side) is a common, debatably illegal, activity. Ask your lawyer how she rips DVDs.
I rip DVDs all the time (so sue me), and when I do, I use HandBrake. It’ll rip to MP4, or if you like, it’ll create video files specifically tailored to iPhone, iPad, Android, or Apple TV. Personally, I rip MP4s and put them in Plex. Open source software at its finest, HandBrake has an enormous number of options that should cover even the most convoluted cases. Get it on Ninite.
Pandora is a music discovery and recommendation service that creates custom stations based on artists or individual songs. The service is powered by the Music Genome Project, a taxonomy of musical information by a team of musicians an audio analysts who have gone through a massive database of songs and categorized them based on more than 400 characteristics (among them harmony, instrumentation, and rhythm). Once you input a song, Pandora spits back a continuously-running playlist of music with similar characteristics.
Pandora is an extremely simple and easy-to-use site that requires very little information from you to sign up. The service consists of a centrally located jukebox that contains a list of previously-created stations on the left-hand side for easy access. Or you can click the Create a New Station button on the top to input a new song or artist. During playback, you have a variety of options. You can pause playback and skip tracks, as well as click thumbs up or thumbs down for the songs you do or don't like, respectively. There's also a menu button for each track that lets you move it to another station, find out why it was selected, bookmark it, or buy it from iTunes or Amazon MP3.
With enough use, it can effectively introduce you to all sorts of new music, and users can really tailor radio stations based on personal tastes. The service makes its money from advertisements that are inserted every few songs, similar to terrestrial radio stations. As with all free Internet radio services, you are subjected to skip limits during playback. However, there's a subscription option that removes the skip limits and ads, and lets users relisten to songs from the playlists.
In addition the Web, Pandora is available on a variety of mobile devices, such as the iPhone, as well as home network music players, such as the Sonos. All in all, Pandora is great way to discover new tunes or just pass the time with some background music, whether you stick to the Web version, take it on the go on your phone, or pump it out to some speakers.
When a file or folder get deleted on major file systems it's only the filename that gets affected by this action. In the most primitive case it loses its first character, and the disk space where that file resided is marked as available for new data. This ensures the fastest deletion possible. It also results in the disk sectors still storing the deleted data. Disk Drill (former Pandora free data recovery) can still recover it! We offer the best of breed recovery algorithms to scavenge that data for you.
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