applications

All good things come from Sweden.

Don’t believe me? Think about it: Abba. Ikea. Dynamite. GPS. Green-living communities. Lord of the Rings-inspired metal music. Statuesque blond ski instructors.

And Spotify.

Way back in 2008, a software development company in Sweden kicked back and thought about how great it would be to offer DRM-free, streaming music to the masses. Granted, lots of people have had this thought. I’m sure you’ve all spent some time on websites like Pandora, last.fm, and maybe even Grooveshark. But you probably don’t have an iTunes-like desktop client that will do what those sites will do. That’s what Spotify is all about.

Spotify lets you pick and choose what music you want to hear from their seemingly bottomless catalog, track by track, album by album, or artist by artist. It will also automatically import any existing audio files on your computer into its directory, so can play those songs along with stuff from Spotify. You can drag things directly into your play queue or create custom playlists. The stuff you make is saved to your account, so you can access the same playlists and history from any computer. You can also link your Spotify account to your Facebook, so you can share playlists with your friends and subscribe to their playlists in turn. Lists are also provided from time to time by the Spotify staff, and other commercial interests like Rolling Stone magazine and various record labels.

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If you have a mobile device running Google’s Android software, the time has come to rejoice. The internet giant recently launched the online version of their app store, Android Market.

While you could always access the market from your Android device to download tons of free and paid applications, you can now check out the same selection from your computer’s internet browser. Having the mobile store to browse on the go is certainly a great convenience, but there’s something to be said for shopping for apps with more screen real estate at hand.  Considering every app’s page has screenshots, reviews, thumbnails of other apps by the same developer, and sometimes even videos of the app in action, it can be a lot to absorb on the 3.5-4″ display most touch-based smartphones sport.

The online market makes it easier to view all the information on an app’s page at once, so you may find your stamina for browsing greatly increased. But the best part? Once you’ve logged in to the market, you can install any app you like directly from the site—without connecting your device to your computer.  Android Market will automatically stream the content from server to smartphone, making the download process just as easy as if you were using the mobile market.

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We here at NYC Tech Guys have discovered that folks have a lot of complaints when it comes to their computers. From speed issues to viruses run amok, there are myriad frustrations that can complicate the user experience.  But even more amazing, lots of people don’t realize that there are some excellent software solutions out there that can ameliorate or even totally rectify some of the most troublesome issues that plague your computer.  To that end, we present “our picks,” a basic ranking of our preferred options for the most popular types of software to help you find the right programs to make your life easier.  This week, we’re talking about some great utilities for Mac users.

Macs are well-known for their user-friendliness and relatively low-maintenance operating systems, and it’s true: as long as you’re conscientious about keeping your software up-to-date and don’t drop it off a cliff, you’ll likely never have a problem with your trusty Mac.  But that said, there are some things that remain veiled behind the curtain of mystery—like keyboard shortcuts. Or Flash. So it is in the spirit of discovery that we present this list of apps that can make your iLife (HA! See what we did there?) that much easier.

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We here at NYC Tech Guys have discovered that folks have a lot of complaints when it comes to their computers. From speed issues to viruses run amok, there are myriad frustrations that can complicate the user experience.  But even more amazing, lots of people don’t realize that there are some excellent software solutions out there that can ameliorate or even totally rectify some of the most troublesome issues that plague your computer.  To that end, we present “our picks,” a basic ranking of our preferred options for the most popular types of software to help you find the right programs to make your life easier.  This week, we’re talking about some great utilities for Windows users.

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We here at NYC Tech Guys have discovered that folks have a lot of complaints when it comes to their computers. From speed issues to viruses run amok, there are myriad frustrations that can complicate the user experience.  But even more amazing, lots of people don’t realize that there are some excellent software solutions out there that can ameliorate or even totally rectify some of the most troublesome issues that plague your computer.  To that end, we present “our picks,” a basic ranking of our preferred options for the most popular types of software to help you find the right programs to make your life easier.  This week, we’re talking about antivirus and protective software.

Viruses, worms, malware, and spyware all pose a very real threat to your computer’s security.  And even if you’re very careful, you’ll probably suffer an infection at some point. At best, these troublesome bits of programming will make it hard for you to use your computer without their interference. At worst, your personal information might become compromised.  It’s important to take the proper precautions to avoid infection when you use your computer (like keeping all your software up-to-date, only opening email attachments that come from trusted sources, and avoiding risk-taking behavior and downloads online). But on top of all that, you need a good antivirus. Here are our top picks for the various places you might be computing.

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We here at NYC Tech Guys have discovered that folks have a lot of complaints when it comes to their computers. From speed issues to viruses run amok, there are myriad frustrations that can complicate the user experience.  But even more amazing, lots of people don’t realize that there are some excellent software solutions out there that can ameliorate or even totally rectify some of the most troublesome issues that plague your computer.  To that end, we present “our picks,” a basic ranking of our preferred options for the most popular types of software to help you find the right programs to make your life easier.  This week, we’re talking about internet browsers.

The internet is everywhere. Literally. It’s in coffee shops, city parks, and likely every room in your home. If you have a smartphone, you’ve even got it in your pocket. It’s probably safe to say that you, like all the rest of us, take this constant connectivity for granted. But this ubiquitous access aside, you might not be getting the best browsing experience. Here are a few recommendations to help you remedy that!

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In spite of all the wonderful things computers have added to modern life, they’ve given us some pretty rotten things too: sentient AI along the lines of HAL and SkyNet, diminished capacity for social interaction, FarmVille. But of all these modern inconveniences, repetitive strain injuries have to be the most prevalent, persistent, and downright annoying. From headaches to hand cramps, there are myriad ailments you can blame on your PC.

Including sleeping poorly.

Ever since computers stopped using interfaces made up of neon green fixed-width type on an empty black screen, the light emitted by your PC’s display was meant to mimic daylight. Specifically, the color temperature of most displays is set to around 6000K by default.  And if you leave your display’s brightness setting at the higher end of its range, it means your eyes are getting bombarded with an awful lot of photons.  Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to stare into the sun?

And burning holes into your retinas aside, staring long and hard at your computer screen after dark can actually affect your circadian rhythms—the biological clockwork that tells you when it’s time to eat, time to wake up, and time to sleep.  Since your body interprets the cooler temperature light coming from your display as sunlight, it thinks computer time equals party time, even if it’s actually nighttime and you want to retire shortly after that last round of Spider Solitaire.

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If you have seen a billboard, read a magazine, or even turned on your TV in the past year or so, you’ve probably caught a glimpse of these: strange, square designs that mean nothing to the naked eye. But given the proper technology, a wealth of information is there for the scanning.

This little box is what is known as a QR, or “quick response,” code. Originally developed in Japan by a subsidiary of the Toyota corporation, the codes can hold a massive amount of information in a relatively small space—over 4,000 alphanumeric characters.

Because QR codes can be used to create an action rather than just spitting out a string of data, they’re ideal for storing links to online content. Lots of advertisers make use of this feature in billboards and other outdoor marketing, where it’s called “hardlinking.” People can capture the QR code and be redirected to a website with special promotions or information relating to the advertising content.

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Anyone who works or has worked in an office environment has come up against this problem at some point or another.  You create a document in a feverish frenzy, send it to the printer with a flourish, and go stand by the industrial monolith to await the hard copy of your genius.

And wait.

There’s no telling how many times you’ll try to reprint before you finally realize that you neglected to change back to your “usual” printer after some other anomalous print job.  And while the worst case scenario is having to rescue a hapless coworker from the pile of copies you sent to the “wrong” printer next to his desk, it’s still a time-consuming and frustrating error.  As such, I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to hear there’s a free program that will render this irritating gaffe obsolete.

Enter Automatic Printer Switcher from Computed Synergy! This program runs in the background of Windows to redirect print jobs according to your every whim.  You simply download and run the program, open the other programs whose print jobs you wish to control, and use the handy interface to pair program with printer.  With a few clicks of a mouse, Word documents will print in your office, Excel spreadsheets will become PDFs, and that funny email forward from Aunt Mabel or your plane tickets to Maui will emerge from that printer in the corner that your boss can’t see.

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Sooner or later disaster strikes, it is inevitable. If you work on computers, at some point you will lose data. The best way to get around this is to have backups. I’m a bit more paranoid about certain things ( like my pictures) that I can not replace. Those aforementioned things are backed up in 3 places, and one of the places also has redundancy built in. Recovery of data off of drives in not cheap, we are talking $1000 just to start. The prices can easily double.

So how do I get started backing up my stuff? Here are 3 programs that I recommend.

Bonkey
JaBackup
NasBackup

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