Five free Chrome tools for faster, easier searches

Your search for the perfect search is over. Five free tools from the Chrome Web Store work with the Chrome browser to make searching easier, or help you tweak your search queries to minimize unwanted results. If you want to delve only into Wikipedia, or if you want to ignore certain sites—especially ones that seem suspect—you can do it with one of these helpers.

I’m lazy. I admit it. Sometimes, the idea of typing a query into a search engine is enough to discourage me from running a Web search altogether. But with Highlight to Search, I can embrace my laziness and still conduct the Web searches I need.

Highlight to Search adds your highlighted text to its search field, and then displays other suggestions based on the search term.

Once you've installed this Chrome extension, Highlight to Search lets you conduct searches for keywords you select on a webpage. Highlight a word or phrase, and Highlight to Search will display a small magnifying glass icon.

Click that, and you’ll see your highlighted phrase along with other search suggestions. Pick one, click again, and your search is complete: Highlight to Search opens a new tab, displaying Google’s search results for your query.

Searching doesn’t get any easier than that.

I resisted the allure of Wikipedia for a long time. It can’t be trusted, I said. It’s not reliable, I claimed. And now I’m over it.

Wikipedia Search displays its results in a drop-down window that lets you read them without leaving the page you're browsing.

Opening my mind to Wikipedia also opened the door to Wikipedia Search. This Chrome App and browser extension lets you search Wikipedia without leaving your current webpage.

Wikipedia Search displays images in easy-to-browse results.

All of the information you seek appears in a window that drops down from the Wikipedia Search icon added to your browser bar. The attractive and well-designed window includes images and links. You also have the option of clicking a button to view the Wikipedia page in a new browser tab.

Wikipedia Search isn’t perfect: On two occasions, it returned an error page in response to a basic search query. (In both instances, however, the error disappeared when I repeated my query.) Nevertheless, it remains a great way to dig up information from a vast trove of content without interrupting your browsing.

There's such a thing as TMI (too much information) in search, too. Say that you prefer the food reviews posted on Urbanspoon to those on Chow or Yelp. A reliable way to prevent sites that you don't want to read from surfacing in searches is to use Google’s own Personal Blocklist (by Google). Make no mistake: That's its name.

When future searches return results from sites you've blocked, Personal Blocklist lets you know with a message at the bottom of the page and a link to view those results.

This Chrome extension adds a link to all of your Google search results, so you can block search results from a given domain. Click it, and all such results disappear from view. The domain goes to your personal blocklist, which you can manage by clicking the Personal Blocklist icon added to your Chrome bar. Here, you can choose to block only subsets of certain domains, remove sites from your blocklist, or add others simply by typing them in.

When future searches return results from those sites, Google notifies you with a message at the bottom of the page and a link to view those results. Personal Blocklist (by Google) isn’t a universal cure to search-engine overload, but it is a handy way to tailor your results.

You know better than to trust everything you find on the Web, but distinguishing what you can trust from what you can’t is often difficult. To help you figure it out, WOT (a Chrome extension from the website reputation and review service) crowdsources the job.

WOT adds small traffic-light icons next to your search results, showing you how others regard each site.

WOT adds small icons next to search results that all major search engines return, along with links that appear on your social networks and Webmail services. The icons use the traffic-light scheme: Green means the site is widely considered to be reliable; yellow suggests that you should treat the site with caution; and red indicates that it may pose a security threat.

Clicking the icon takes you to WOT’s site. There you see more details about the site, and you can read what other users have to say about it. WOT allows you to add your own information about any site on the Web, just by clicking the WOT icon on to your Chrome menu bar.

WOT doesn’t guarantee your safety on the Web, but it does help you navigate its dangers with the help of thousands of cyber-friends.

One of my all-time favorite browser tools, the Google Toolbar, isn't available for Google Chrome. According to Google, that’s because many of the Google Toolbar's features are built into Chrome itself. Still, I miss having a toolbar, which is why I love SearchBar. This Chrome extension adds a customizable search toolbar to Chrome.

SearchBar is accessible via the small icon in your Chrome menu bar, or it can live at the top of your browser window permanently.

SearchBar adds a magnifying-glass icon to Chrome’s menu bar. Click it, and a search toolbar appears. For easier access to the toolbar, use the settings menu to create a custom key combination, or have it display whenever you're browsing. To use it, enter your query, and click the site you’d like to search.

Highlight text on the webpage, and SearchBar automatically adds it to the search field.

The default options are Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Wolfram Alpha, but you can customize the choices by using SearchBar’s settings menu. SearchBar lacks the slickness of Google’s own toolbar, which becomes its own part of your browser. But since Google Toolbar isn’t available for Chrome, SearchBar is the next best thing.

Anyone can type a search term into a text bar. But these five tools do more, helping you dig exactly what you want out of the search results more quickly and easily. And they're free, so you don't have to dig out your wallet at all.

Liane Cassavoy is a veteran technology and business journalist. She contributes regularly to PCWorld and has written about business issues and products for Entrepreneur Magazine and other publications. She is the author of two business start-up guides published by Entrepreneur Press.
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Not Another PDF Scanner 2 review: Free NAPS2 makes documents scans easier

Windows has built-in support for scanning documents. In fact, it not only supports scanning but positively embraces the endeavor, forcing you to save your scanned documents where it thinks they should go, and perform several extraneous steps every time you want to scan a page. If you find that annoying, you should check out NAPS2, which stands for Not Another PDF Scanner 2.

The NAPS2 interface is as simple as could be.

This free, open-source utility doesn't smother you with guidance. Its bare-bones interface lets you set up multiple scanning profiles, each with its own name, resolution, document size, scan source, and so on. When the time comes to scan, you just pick a profile and scan. The images scanned are imported directly into NAPS2, and you can then save them out as images or as PDFs.

NAPS2 supports several image formats, including JPG, PNG, and even TIFF. PDF support is basic and straightforward: Simply select a number of images and click the Save PDF button to produce a PDF that includes them, one per page. You can control the ordering of the pages via toolbar buttons, but you don't get to tune anything else about the PDF. It's as basic as it gets.

Profiles present many settings, but don't take them too seriously: They may not all work.

Not all profile settings work: Despite setting my Receipts profile to scan documents in greyscale, resulting images were in full color. You can resolve it with a third-party image editor like the free IrfanView, but it's still a minor drawback. I also crashed NAPS2 when opting to scan images using the TWAIN Driver, though WIA support worked well for the most part. You can even choose to use the WIA user interface, which lets you preview the image you are about to scan and optionally crop it prior to scanning.

The WIA user interface lets you preview and crop the image prior to scanning.

The only feature I really missed when using NAPS2 was image straightening: When scanning magazine pages, no matter how hard I tried to position the paper straight, it tended to deform as I closed the scanner lid. Many other scanning applications let you partially rotate the scanned page to compensate for this, but NAPS2 doesn't have such a feature. It does let you rotate the page 90 degrees right or left, but that's useful only if you incorrectly orient the page when putting it on the scanner.

Sometimes less is truly more. NAPS2 keeps a narrow focus, resulting in an app that's so simple it doesn't even have a Settings dialog. If you're simply looking to scan a few documents and like to make your own calls about how and where to save them, NAPS2 handily beats the scanning feature built into Windows 8.

Endlessly tweaking his workflow for comfort and efficiency, Erez is a freelance writer on a mission to discover the simplest, coolest, and most effective software and websites to make tomorrow happen today.
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Apache OpenOffice 4.0 review: New features, easier to use, still free

Apache OpenOffice is a full suite of office applications: word processor, database, spreadsheet, presentation, and graphics. Each of them is full-featured and robust. Though not always matching Microsoft Office in terms of maximum bells and whistles, each application goes far beyond the basics in its class. Not bad for a free suite.

You can start designing forms for databases entry with an auto-generated form, then customize it extensively.

Apache OpenOffice is a long-standing competitor to Microsoft Office, with the roots of its code going back over ten years. It is a free, open-source product under the auspices of the well-known Apache Software Foundation, with regular updates, maintenance, and bug fixes.

Like LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org, Apache OpenOffice "forked" from Oracle OpenOffice (which grew from StarOffice) in 2010. The sidebar interface was based on Lotus Symphony, which was donated to Apache Software in 2012. Despite the multiple code inputs, Apache OpenOffice feels smooth and cohesive—important in an office suite.

The individual applications in Apache OpenOffice have a good level of integration. The menu and toolbar for each window are relevant to the current document, but you can always go to the "File" menu and create a new document of another type, which will then open in its own window. Including information from other applications, such as database rows in a Writer document, is not particularly difficult.

Sadly, faux-Victorian prose is not within editorial guidelines for reviews.

Writer offers a long list of functions: document templates, frames, mail merge, a style manager, section-based headers and footers, and much more. The sidebar docking feature introduced in Apache OpenOffice 4.0 is very useful if you have a wide monitor, as it's easy to place multiple panels so that all controls are visible and accessible.

The layout and design options are flexible, but not quite at the level of Word 2007. For example, if you select a 'banded' table style, and insert or delete rows, the banding does not automatically adjust; you must select the table and re-apply the style.

Tracking doughnut consumption is perhaps the best use for any spreadsheet.

Base provides a functional set of database design and formatting tools. Some of the interface elements, such as query creation, are not entirely intuitive. There were some oddities that are sensible in retrospect, but don't call themselves out to a user: For example, switching a text field from "single line" to "multi line with formatting" disconnected it from the underlying database field (a long text field), because formatted text requires a binary field. I'd have appreciated a warning or error message.

This points out one of the flaws with Apache OpenOffice: The documentation is sparse, and not well-aimed at non-technical users. The information on some features is barely more than the feature's name and self-evident function. The definition for the "Criteria" field of the query editor is "Specifies the criteria by which the content of the data field should be filtered," with no examples or guidelines. Writing code is more fulfilling and interesting, as an end in itself, than writing documentation, so this is a common issue with open source software.

General interface responsiveness in Apache OpenOffice is good, though there's a very slight lagginess. Generally, AOO obeys standard Windows OS conventions. The look and feel are closer to XP than to Vista or 7—and leagues away from 8, for which it's tested but not yet certified—which many will consider a feature. I experienced no redraw issues, artifacting, or other oddities.

Overall, I like Apache OpenOffice. The feature set includes what I expect in an office suite,  and the developers have made a strong effort to make switching between applications feel smooth and intuitive. A Windows-only user who already has access to recent versions of Office will probably not be tempted unless they genuinely prefer open source for personal or financial reasons…but those who have no office suite, those who need a multi-platform (Windows, Mac OS, and *nix), and those who have only older version of Office will all find something worth checking out.

The strength of the individual applications is such that Apache OpenOffice is fine even if you only need a single one of the components. You won't sacrifice significant functionality. Given that it's free, it's hard to argue against at least trying it out.

Note: The Download button takes you to the developer's site, where you can download the latest version of this open-source software.

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Nero 2014 Platinum review: Burning and media creation suite gets easier to use

Nero 2014 Platinum $130.00 Nero is still one of the most capable of the burning suites, and it fills most users' needs in the creative department (video editing and production, slideshows, etc.), but most improvements in version...

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The ever-competent Nero disc-burning and multimedia creation suite takes on almost easy-to-use status in its latest incarnation, Nero 2014. Considering that the platinum version of 2014 burns all manner of optical discs, converts video for nearly all devices, plays Blu-ray movies, and provides about 90% or the media creation and editing features of more expensive suites, it's also a bargain at $130 (with a 15-day free trial).

The new look of most of Nero 2014's modules is clean and easy, and it introduces drag-and-drop features that were formerly missing.

Under-the-hood improvements in version 2014 include faster encoding, streaming video to TVs, and support for 4K video. But the big changes are in usability. Other modules have adopted the modern look of the included Nero MediaHome app, which is a very good media librarian and player for video, audio, and photos.

The modules that have fully adopted the new look are Nero Video, a very competent video editing program with near pro-level abilities including Blu-ray and 3D disc authoring; Nero Recode, a program for transcoding video to a number of formats and devices that's up there with the best standalones; and the Nero Blu-ray Player for BD (plain and 3D) playback.

Alas, both Nero Burning ROM (the original disc-burning Nero program that started it all) and Nero Express (the lite version of Burning ROM) still suffer under the clunky old interface. Nero claims users are resistant to change. Me? I'd rather see the new look.

The new launch application for Nero looks good in Windows 8 Metro, but runs only full-screen and is less easy to work from on the desktop.

There always seems to be one what-were-they-thinking element in Nero suites. In this case, it's the nod towards Windows 8 in the form of the new launch center. It looks Windows 8-ish and works well, but it only runs full screen or minimized. As everything else in Nero runs in desktop mode, the approach makes little sense. Note that the Nero BackItUp program is no longer included, but there is a very large collection of pre-fab artistic content such as templates, backgrounds, video FX, etc.

In my hands-on with the suite, Nero 2014 seemed less buggy than the first release of Nero 12. That's a good start, but you should also know that the company is usually very quick with the bug fixes, should you run into any.

Nero remains at the top of the heap when it comes to disc creation, and it has more than enough video, photo, and audio creative abilities to satisfy the average user. It should definitely be on your short shopping list of budget suites, along with Cyberlink's Media Suite 11 and Roxio's Easy Media Creator NXT 2.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

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Acronis True Image 2014 review: Still powerful and feature-rich, now easier to use

You might think Windows has you covered with its own imaging/system backup, but there's still a need for programs such as Acronis True Image. Windows' built-in utility is extremely limited and reacts badly to new hardware. True Image handles bare-metal restore and diverse hardware without hiccup. Owners of recent versions of True Image probably won't find anything particularly compelling about this latest rendition, as only the online service is really new, but the new interface is a breeze to use. It also takes Acronis Backup to the cloud for the first time.

Acronis True Image 2014's new backup pane is simplicity itself.

If there's one thing that stands out about the latest version of True Image 2014, it's how friendly it is. Gone are the poorly rendered dialogs and oddly phrased instructions. The interface is clean, efficient, and simple. You can perform a backup without answering a confusing stream of questions. All the options advanced users want—including password protection, sector-by-sector backup (the program defaults to backing up only occupied sectors),  pre- and post-run commands, splitting (or not) of files, and validation—are still present. They're simply hidden away in a very cleanly organized dialog.

True Image 2014 can perform file and image backups, one-off backups, multiple tracked backups, incremental, differential, scheduling, notifications, and more. There's really no imaging trick from the last fifteen years that the program doesn't have in its bag. In addition, if your laptop lacks a boot-time recovery option, True Image will provide it. The SecureZone and Try and Decide options are still available, and there's a full list of secure erase options. You can even convert Windows backups to Acronis's format, and vice-versa.

Acronis True Image 2014's friendly new interface and vibe are major improvements to the once obtuse GUI.

In keeping with modern times, there's an online backup option in Acronis's own Acronis Cloud. You get one year of 5GB (enough only for data, not system backups) for free with the program, but after a year, or for more storage, it'll cost $10 per year for 5GB, $30 a year for 50GB, $40 for 125GB, and $50 for 125GB. That's highly competitive pricing.

Every imaging or backup program should feature the ability to create disaster recovery boot media—ideally, both CD (for older systems), and USB flash drive. The ponderousness of TI's older boot media forced me to abandon previous versions of the program, as it wasn't good for older, memory-challenged PCs. R-Drive Image is better for those. True Image 2014's rescue disc still requires 512MB of system memory, and the new interface isn't implemented, making it less friendly that the Windows UI. However, Acronis provides the means for adding it to a Windows PE boot disc, though it's not as simple a process as it should be.

Though they aren't available until you ask, True Image's options are advanced and myriad.

If  If If If you're more than a version or two back on True Image, the 2014 version is well worth a look.you're new to backup products, simply know that it really doesn't get any better than Acronis True Image for the average user, though I recommend R-Drive Image for pros.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks.
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Review: Zotero makes research easier, faster, more robust

Everyone researching with electronic sources knows the pains of collecting articles, managing a library, and, worst of all, creating citations. Zotero is a veteran (and completely free) browser add-on that solves nearly all these problems. Originally available only for Firefox, cross-platform tool Zotero has recently become available for Chrome and Safari as well via its standalone desktop version.

Zotero's plugins for Microsoft Office and LibreOffice make it easier to track citations.

Zotero makes it easy to collect research papers off the Web, attach PDFs, find relevant articles in your library, and sync it across PCs. With the help of a Microsoft Word/LibreOffice plugin, Zotero takes the pain out of citations and bibliography, doing all the heavy lifting for you, using any of the major citation styles. It's indispensable for students.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the edition appropriate to your system.

Yaara is a foodie, horse-lover, and biologist who enjoys being a geek as a full-time job.
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Review: MarkdownPad makes composing Markdown even easier than usual

HTML is the lingua franca of the Web. If you publish anything online, that's the format your text will end up in. But while easy for browsers to render, HTML isn't always easy (or fun) to compose. Some content management systems, like Wordpress, solve this problem by offering a WYSIWYG editor that lets you edit visually. For those who prefer the simplicity and ubiquity of plain text, Markdown is the way to go—and MarkdownPad Pro is a simple editor that lets you compose Markdown and view your results instantly.

MarkdownPad's instant preview mode makes it easy to see what your final HTML is going to look like.

By default, MarkdownPad Pro shows a split interface, with your text taking up the left side of the window and an instantly-rendered output taking up the right—much like online Markdown editor Dillinger.io. If you find the live preview pane distracting (as I do), you can hit F5 to toggle it. If you do like it, but don't like the vertical layout, a quick tap on F4 switches the editor to a horizontal layout with the preview pane under the editing pane.

Markdown is the format of choice for many writers, and MarkdownPad 2 contains several writer-friendly features: A live word count on the status bar, squiggly lines denoting typos, and frequent automatic saving are just a few. One feature that's notably missing is the ability to copy formatted text as rich text, for pasting into Microsoft Word or other rich-text aware editors–something free editor WriteMonkey offers. On the plus side, MarkdownPad 2 lets you directly export a PDF document from your Markdown source.

If you find the instant preview distracting, you can easily toggle it off and enjoy just the Markdown syntax highlighting.

Markdown is a lightweight format, so your text shouldn't be drowning in tags and angle brackets. Still, it does have its own conventions for links, titles, and text emphasis–and MarkdownPad offers syntax highlighting that makes it easy to see if you got the syntax right. It also offers toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts for many of the syntax constructs, but unfortunately doesn't let you customize the shortcut keys. Ctrl+K, which I would expect to insert a link, instead inserts the token for a code block (Ctrl+L inserts a link).

If you find Markdown too restrictive for your needs and require more power, you may want to try Markdown Extra. This is an enhanced version of the Markdown syntax, including refinements like Markdown inside HTML blocks, and definition lists. MarkdownPad 2 supports Markdown Extra, as well as GitHub-flavored Markdown, for composing text destined for the open-source powerhouse.

MarkdownPad ships with several rendering presents, but you can edit them or add new ones if you know CSS.

MarkdownPad 2 is solid, but not spectacular. I am not convinced the commercial version justifies the $15 price tag, given Markdown's inherent simplicity and the availability of free, powerful alternatives such as WriteMonkey and Dillinger.io. That said, it does get the job done, and the instant preview goes a long way towards ensuring your document ends up the way you want it to, without having to make last-minute tweaks to get things to render correctly. If you're disappointed with the free alternatives, MarkdownPad 2 might be worth a try.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

Endlessly tweaking his workflow for comfort and efficiency, Erez is a freelance writer on a mission to discover the simplest, coolest, and most effective software and websites to make tomorrow happen today.
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Review: Linux Live USB Creator makes it easier to install Linux

Expatriate Scotsman now living in Wurzburg, Germany, freelance writer, frustrated future bestselling author, obsessed bibliophile. Other interests include trying to understand The Architect in the Matrix movies, decrypting codes and ciphers, and trying to persuade my landlord and my wife to let me have a Highland Cow for a pet.
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There used to be a time when Microsoft Windows ruled the operating system world. But in recent years, the free and open source Linux operating system has taken a big bite out of Windows' dominance. But Linux has always had an image problem of seeming too difficult and unwieldy to install and learn, with a steep learning curve attached.

Linux Live USB Creator (LiLi for short) aims to take the sting out of a newcomer's introduction to the operating system by making it as easy as possible to get started. All you need is a USB stick with enough space—a minimum 2GB should do the trick—and five minutes of your time to install it. No user manual required.

After downloading and installing the software (developer Thibaut Lauziere also offers a portable version), open it up and you will see a simple straightforward user interface, showing the various steps needing to be completed. Once each step has been successfully carried out, the traffic light icon on the right hand side will turn green.

One option, after installation, is to run Linux inside Virtualbox which has the added benefit of being able to run two OS's at the same time (Windows & Linux)

First, you need to point the app towards the location of your USB stick in the computer.  Secondly, you need to choose the source of the Linux installation file. For example, you may have it already downloaded onto your computer. If so, point it towards that file.

If not, you can click "download" and a big drop-down menu of various Linux distros (and some non-Linux options) will be presented as possibilities.  Just choose the one you want to download.  For newcomers, it's probably easiest to choose Ubuntu as it's an easy Linux distro to get started with.

Once you've done this, the "persistence" level should be automatically at green. "Persistence" means that you can keep your preferences and data on your USB stick, after rebooting (normally this information is discarded).

Next come LiLi's personal options, which you must decide yourself. I enabled all three options but you need to decide for yourself what you prefer.

Finally, if everything looks OK, click the yellow lightning flash to begin the installation of your chosen Linux distro to your USB stick. In my case, it took only a few minutes and it was immediately ready to go.

There are two possibilities to run your new Linux distro. The first one is to reboot your computer and let Windows boot from the USB stick. However, this means you are running only Linux with no access to Windows. The second (and preferable) option is to go to the stick and choose "Virtualize This Key," which will launch the excellent VirtualBox software.

This is the software equivalent of a sandbox where you can run software programs inside, independent of the operating system you are currently using. In other words, you can be running Windows and at the same time, have Linux running inside the VirtualBox window.

The only downside to this option is that a huge amount of CPU is going to be required to run both OS's simultaneously. So you may notice things slowing down slightly as a result. If it gets too bad, try closing some non-essential programs.

In a word, Linux Live USB Creator should be on everyone's PC, as it is essential for everyone to learn that there is a world beyond what Microsoft has to offer. With it being portable, you can easily carry it about on a USB stick and introduce Linux to everyone you know.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

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MiTeC Mail Viewer Makes Accessing Old Messages Easier

Switching email clients is a painstaking proposition, but accessing old messages is a little easier with handy utility MiTeC Mail Viewer (free).

MiTeC Mail Viewer lets you read old email messages easily, including the complete text of the message and any attachments.Mail Viewer lets you access mail databases from Microsoft Outlook Express 4, 5, and 6; Windows Mail/Windows Live Mail; and Mozilla Thunderbird, as well as single EML files. It doesn't require installation: just run the executable file whenever you need to access it. You won't get a lot of hand-holding along the way, however, as Mail Viewer offers little guidance.

To use the program, you have to know what kind of messages you're looking for, and it's helpful to have an idea of where they're stored. Mail Viewer lets you choose between opening an Outlook Express message database, a folder containing EML files (from Windows Mail or Windows Live Mail), a Mozilla Thunderbird database, and a single EML file. It will suggest a location for the databases, but if you've moved messages over from an older computer or stored them on a networked drive, you're going to have to point Mail Viewer to the correct location.

Once you locate the messages you'd like to view, Mail Viewer excels. This utility lets you read messages, complete with attachments, just as easily as if you were using your original email client. You can see the sender, any other recipients, time stamps, and more. Messages can be saved and printed.

If you've been using Gmail for years, and have a complete online record of all the messages you've sent and received, then you're probably wondering why there's a need for MiTeC Mail Viewer. But if you have a locked database of old Outlook Express messages that seems to be tougher to open than a safe at Fort Knox, Mail Viewer holds the key.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

—Liane Cassavoy

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RecImg Manager Makes Windows Disk Imaging Easier

RecImg Manager is a Metro interface and manager for the new Windows 8 recimg.exe command line utility and the recovery images it creates. Unlike full images, recovery images don't contain or documents, user settings, etc.; these are left alone when a recovery image is created or restore. However, they do contain everything else, and with no differential or incremental options, they are generally quite large.

RecImg Manager leverages Windows 8's disk imaging abilities to create a neat, super lightweight backup solution. Microsoft should take note.RecImag Manager lets you avoid using the command prompt window to run recimg.exe so you can more comfortably enter the details for recovery images such as the name and storage location. It also handily adds the ability to schedule their creation and manage the number of images that are retained.

I did note one small issue with RecImg Manager. After I cancelled a backup, I was unable to quit the program, receiving warnings that a backup was still in progress. Task Manager showed that recimg.exe, which is easily cancelled, was still running. After ending the recimg.exe process, I was able to quit RecImg Manager.

RecImg Manager is undeniably handy, and puts a much-needed friendly face on this Windows 8 command line backup and recovery feature. Indeed, I wish Slimware Utilities would do the same thing with Windows xcopy.exe so we could all more easily perform file and folder backups.

—Jon L. Jacobi

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Wunderlist App Review: Getting Things Done Just Got Easier

? WUNDERLIST IS MULTI-PLATFORM AND COMPLETELY FREE, INCLUDING CLOUD SYNC ?

Download Wunderlist, our free cloud-sync task manager, and complete your daily tasks in style.

Wunderlist for Android will boost your productivity. Organize your to-do lists on the go and synchronize them with your free Wunderlist account. View and modify your tasks on Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and the Web. Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide use Wunderlist everyday. Wunderlist - your tasks anywhere, anytime.

?? Achievements & Press

"10 Best Productivity Apps of 2010" - The Next Web

"Wunderlist not only provides a functional multi-platform client, it makes it look good" - AndroidPolice.com

"Toss in some added cool stuff like customizable backgrounds and you have a pretty complete tool at your disposal" - AndroidCentral.com

"Wunderlist marries an attractive design with powerful syncing abilities" - MobileBurn.com

"Wunderlist is a complete solution that’s easy to use" - DroidDog.com

?? Key Features

? Free ? Wunderlist is completely free for every device

? Cloud sync ? Your tasks are synced with your free Wunderlist account

? Email reminders ? Ensure your tasks never slip your mind

? Mail2Task ? Send tasks to Wunderlist from your email inbox

? Organize ? Sort your tasks into lists

? Due Dates ? Assign deadlines to your tasks

? Focus ? View a breakdown of your tasks with our filter views

? Notes ? Give your tasks further detail

? Prioritize ? Star important tasks

? Personalize ? Make Wunderlist your own with our included background wallpapers

To download Wunderlist for other platforms please go to:

www.6wunderkinder.com/wunderlist

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Support:

Have any questions or feedback? Please get in touch with our free tech support at support@6wunderkinder.com

Recent changes:

? All views are now updated after sync, so that any changes are directly displayed

? The password field bug is now resolved (when logging in / registering)

? Doubled tasks bug has been fixed

? Sync messages are now shown faster

? Works on Honeycomb

? Upgraded to the latest Titanium Mobile SDK 1.7.1

Content rating: Everyone

by Sarah Jacobsson Purewal, PCWorld

Wunderlist is a good-looking and simple-to-use list-making app that syncs across a number of platforms, including Android and iOS devices, PCs, Macs, and the Web.

When you first open Wunderlist on your Android device, it prompts you to sign in or to create an account. This step is necessary, because it will allow Wunderlist to sync your lists with all of the other devices you might use Wunderlist on. Luckily, creating an account is as quick and easy as entering your email address and a password.

Wunderlist's main screen displays all of your created lists. To add a list, you simply type the name of your new list in the text box at the top of the screen and press the return key. Voilà--your new list is ready.

The main screen also has five buttons at the bottom: Lists, Today, Overdue, Starred, and More. The Lists button lets you see all of your lists, while the middle three buttons (as their names suggest) show only items that are due today, overdue, or labeled with a star. The More button allows you to see additional categories (including All, Tomorrow, Done, and Next 7 Days), as well as to access the Settings menu.

To access a list, just tap on its name, and you'll go to a screen where you can view the contents of that list. Individual list screens are simple, and work much as the main list screen does. A text box at the top lets you enter a new task; after you enter it, your task appears on the list, and you can click it to edit the details. For example, you can enter a due date, jot down notes, star the task, or set a reminder via notification or email. To check an item off a list, tap the checkbox next to the item on the screen.

Wunderlist is a wonderfully simple list-making app. I particularly like the fact that, while you can add a bunch of details to each of your list items, you aren't required to. Wunderlist is an excellent tool for managing tasks and getting things done.

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