Welcome to the Geek Choice Blog

Some of us are particular about the appearance of our desktop, annoyed by the clutter that can result from having too many icons scattered about. If you’re someone who likes to keep their desktop free of icons, while still retaining the ability to launch those apps which would otherwise be available, FLS Launcher is a free tool that affords you that luxury.

Once installed, this application can be launched from either the system tray — where you’d simply click on the corresponding icon — or accessed by moving your mouse cursor to the upper-left corner of the screen. After you’ve opened it, a window will pop-up, offering you a tabbed interface that’s easily navigable and customizable with additional tabs and icons for those applications you wish to include. You have the ability to drag and drop applications as you please,  between the computer and this utility, exiting the launcher once it’s fashioned to your choosing.

FLS Launcher is for the neat freaks amongst us, amongst whom I admit membership. It keeps your desktop free of the clutter and gives you quick access to your favorite apps.

I should note that there are two versions: a donation version, which offers the full set of features for a small contribution, and a freeware model that has 90% — pretty much all you’d need — of the utility’s functionality for free.

This is for Windows only and can be retrieved here.

A sure sign as any that the official debut of the much anticipated, but heavily delayed, Firefox 3.6 approaches is the recent release of its first release candidate.

The term “release candidate” refers to that release which, having ironed out much of the quirks found during the beta stage, stands a good chance of being the official version.

This could very well be your chance to take the final release for an early test drive.

According to Mozilla, this release candidate comes with significantly improved performance and greater functionality, including tools that ensure those beloved Firefox extensions are kept current.

This is a free download available for Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux users.

You can get it here.

You may not want to worry about the risk of data loss, but the fact is that all hard drives deteriorate over time. If you don’t have proper backups of the information stored there, it could be gone forever in the blink of an eye. Even users who are well aware of this risk frequently don’t maintain up-to-date backups, which is why data recovery services exist.

If your hard drive has failed, there is one simple thing you can do to improve our chances of recovering all your data: turn the computer off. And leave it off. Every second that you leave your system on with a damaged hard drive destroys parts of your files.

If you need data from a CCTV system, it’s important to get that video quickly. Many CCTV systems write over old data after a certain number of days have passed, and that reduces your chances of recovering the files you need to almost nil. Even advanced clean rooms have a better chance of retrieving files from a hard drive that’s been smashed to bits than one that’s been overwritten.

It can be hard to tell when your hard drive is about to give out. The best way to protect yourself against data loss is to maintain good backups in the first place. If you don’t already have one in place, Geek Choice can help. Find out more about our data backup and recovery services on our main website, or by clicking either link in this post.

Having so many friends on Facebook, it’s difficult to keep track of just how many photos of yourself that others have tagged. From that office retreat back in April to a family picture taken during the holidays, tagged photos can pop up out of nowhere, with you unknowingly present in some of them. Instead of asking them for a copy of that photo, you can use Photograbber, a neat utility that simply collects all of those photos in which your friends have tagged you and others.

Installation is simple. After its completion, Photograbber will scour the walls of your various friends for those pictures they’ve tagged. After selecting the Facebook friend from whom you want to grab, Photograbber will retrieve each and every one of the photos, storing them in a directory that you specify.

Photograbber doesn’t allow you to select which photos you want. When using it, Photograbber collects every tagged photo. Additionally, there is no way to preview the photos you’ve received, as Photograbber doesn’t provide any thumbnails of the images. You’ll have to open each photo to see what’s included.

We should also note that this will require that you’re actually friends with the individuals from whom you’re culling the photos. Depending on their privacy settings, you may find that Photograbber is unable to collect the photos.

If you’re someone who just needs to collect the photos of your Facebook friends, including those that feature you, this is an excellent and easy way to do so.

You can download Photograbber here.

If you’re the administrator of a shared computer on which you have multiple users, you very well could be someone who wants that computer used for a specific purpose, wanting to limit access to a select few applications. This is especially true of businesses where lapses in productivity could be a concern. You could be a manager looking to have your network administrator to craft a means of increasing the productivity of employees, or you might be a parent who’s mindful of the impact your children’s computer use is having on their studies.

For whatever the reason, Windows 7 allows you to decide just which applications users of that shared system can open.

This feature is not available for users of Windows 7 Home versions.

First, you want to click on the Start button and enter “gpedit.msc” in the search box. Press Enter.

Then, you’ll want to go to User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ System. Once there, look under “Setting,” where you will then double-click on “Run only specified Windows applications.”

You” have to set that to “Enabled.” Then, in the Options section, click on the “Show” button.

Doing so will pull up a “Show Contents” window in which you can enter only those applications you want users to have access to. Once you’ve completed the list, click “OK.” Close out of the Local Group Policy editor.

With that done, you have now set restrictions on which applications users of your computer can avail themselves of. Should someone try to use one that isn’t included on your list of allowed applications, they will see the following message:

If you’re someone who monitors which applications are being used on your computer, this a great feature that will assist you in that regard.

If you haven’t made the leap to the beta for Firefox 3.6, you should know that Mozilla has released an update for Firefox 3.5.

According to its developers, Firefox 3.5.7 addresses stability concerns and how significant updates are introduced to users.

Though you should be prompted for this update shortly, you can download it now.

Grab the Firefox 3.5.7 update here.

If you are a Mac user becoming frustrated by the rapidly depleting space on your hard drive, puzzled by just what’s occupying what was once available, this free application will give you some of the answers you’ve sought.

It’s called OmniDiskSweeper, and it quickly provides users a detailed rundown on what’s sitting on your hard drive, with a simple delineation of the exact files residing in your folders.

When starting OmniDiskSweeper, you’re prompted to select the drive you wish to review. Upon completion of the scan, you’re presented with an easily interpretable list of every folder on that drive, with their respective size defined by a color coding scheme. Using this tool, you can manage each folder, deleting files to your choosing. After each deletion, OmniDiskSweeper recalculates the available space on your computer.

This is a great tool to keep available when you think you might want to try your hand at optimizing your Mac. It’s easy to use, fast, and an excellent means of regaining all of the space that’s dwindled on your hard drive.  It’s also free, an added plus that very few of us can ignore.

This is only for Macs, and it can be obtained here.

A few blog posts ago, I touched upon Microsoft Security Essentials’ recent accolades from AV-Comparatives, an anti-malware testing group that compares various anti-malware solutions and ranks them accordingly. As reported, Microsoft Security Essentials is one of just two anti-malware packages — the other being F-Secure Anti-Virus 2010 — that were rated “very fast” in every test category included in the company’s comparisons.

Adding to that initial honor, AV-Comparatives has also given Microsoft Security Essentials the award for the best performance of those programs tested.  Subjecting the competing anti-maleware solutions to a variety of tests derived from real-world scenarios — downloading, extracting, copying, encoding files, application launches, etc. — gave a  clear leader in Microsoft Security Essentials.

What became most noticeable was how little Microsoft Security Essentials demanded of a system’s resources, contributing to AV-Comparative’s decision to rank it as the best-performing anti-malware solution that you can get for free. Brisk performance in every major category, while being light on resources, is reason enough to give this highly recommended anti-malware program a look — particularly when you taking into consideration that it’s free, outpacing those solutions that cost money.

Proving its mettle against the competition, Microsoft Security Essentials is a great tool to protect your computer with.

Read AV-Comparative’s findings here.

If you’re interested in using Microsoft Security Essentials, you can find it here.

We all like to spruce things up, keeping fresh for the New Year. With that in mind, you probably want to introduce a bit of variety to your desktop, making sure to rotate your wallpaper so you’re never looking at one that begins to grow stale.

While I have hundreds of images I’ve used on my desktop over the years, I’ve always had to manually set them, finding that I usually do so when growing tired of being greeted by the same image when booting my computer up.

There’s a new application that will juggle your images and update your wallpaper, leaving your desktop fresh in 2010. Not only will this tool set a rotating schedule for your wallpaper, but it also downloads new wallpaper images from two sites – Interfacelift and Wallpaper Stock.

Called Wallpaper Juggler, this tool is for Windows users.

Whether you’re buying a new suit for your wardrobe or hitting the roads in a shiny new car, ringing in the New Year fresh is a long held tradition for many, one that could very well apply to something as mundane as your desktop wallpaper.

If you want to keep your desktop looking fresh, you can grab Wallpaper Juggler here.