Google Docs now has free templates

Google Docs now has a stack of Templates you can use for all three applaictions. Most templates are from Google themselves at the moment, they have ones for budgets, planner, caledars, letter, CV's, Invoices, Sales Presentations the lot.

Visit http://docs.google.com/templates to check them out.

Windows Mobile Remote Control

I own a windows mobile device and it's day hooked up to my PC via ActiveSync. This is a great free tool that alows you to do the follwoing...

View your mobile screen on your desktop.
Control your mobile by using desktop keyboard and mouse.
Copy/Cut/Paste text between mobile and desktop.
Capture mobile screen.
Drag and drop files to your mobile.
Support ActiveSync / IP Connection
Support Mobile Explorer (File Browse)

Visit http://www.mtux.com to download it free.

Are you missing My Briefcase in Vista?

Is that old XP / 2000 sysnc tool, My Briefcase in Vista? Well the answer is yes.  Some people are reporting that it has been replaced with Sync Center, which looks a great tool, but if you find you or your users don't want to change just yet then don't worry.

My Briefcase is still in the "right click > new" menu on all the Vista machines I've been on, including Business and Home Premium.  But if it is missing apparently you can unhide it by holding down the Shift key when right clicking.  This just unhides the "Open Command Window Here" feature, which is also very useful if you're a DOS kinda person.

Let me know if your missing My Briefcase in Vista!

Transfer Youtube videos to your iPod easily with Floola

I found this really neat feature in Floola today to transfer Youtube videos from the internet to your iPod video with no messing or knowledge of what to convert it to or with.  Simply use Floola! Visit http://www.floola.com/

Need to rename lots of files on mass - File Renamer

I work for a software house called VoiteQ, and I am always needing to rename files to test importing data into our middleware software. There are many out there but non of them quite did what we needed as elagent as we would have liked.

So, one of my colleagues, Martin, took to writing our own File Renamer Tool and has kindly allowed me to publish the program and the code on my blog.

The program runs without any install (but it does require the .Net framework).

Download the exe here, and you can also get the VB.net code here. Feedback is very welcome.

Fix your broke iPod Nano - wont play!

My iPod Nano 3G got it's knickers in a twist today and wouldn't play anything. Whatever you selected it tried to play but then just jumped back to the play selection screen.


What you have to do in short is hold down the center and the menu buttons together for about 5 seconds, this forces the iPod to do a reboot - the apple logo appears as it reboots. Holding down the play button to turn it of and then back on is not a reboot.

All my music was still there and everything was fine again in Apple World.

Power from the USB port on the back of your Virgin V+ TV Box

I was re-cabling my TV system last night as we got a new TV unit for it to all go on, and I started to look into the different ports that are on the back of the Virgin's V+ Cable TV Box (Virgin is the UK's cable provider, providing TV, Broadband and a Phone Lines).

On the back of the V+ box there is a USB, Ethernet and SATA ports (as well as the normal Cable Input, TV antenna, HDMI and Scart connectors). I was hoping that I could plug my wireless router into the Ethernet port on the V+ box and be able to access the Internet, this would save me having to use a Cable Modem (and all the extra cables that come with it). Well no such luck, the router should grab an IP address from the Box but couldn't.

So I took a look at the USB, this doesn't do much either, but it does provide a power output - meaning I can charge my mobile phone or my iPod from it, nothing wrong with having another charging point in your house, it will save having my 3 pin power adapter. It is worth mentioning at this point that the PlayStation's USB port when switched on also provides power!

Using Cipher.exe to Wipe a Used Hard Disk Clean

So, I was sat there listing my USB hard drive on eBay, when I thought I'd better look for a tool to wipe all the data off it. As we all know, simply formatting your drive (even the non "quick" way) doesn't actually remove any data. Using the right tools you can still read data from the drive. So I took to Google and started looking for a free way of securely erasing a hard drive.

I came across the usual junk programs trying to grab my attention to download their free trials but I then found this Microsoft Tech Net article...

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490177.aspx

In it it describes how you can use the Windows built-in tool call Cipher. Brilliant I thought, free and built into windows. You simply format the drive via your usual method (right click the drive in My Computer and select Format) and once that is done open up the command prompt and run...

CIPHER /W:drive_letter:\

Cipher.exe erases the hidden data on the formatted disk by writing the disk full of 0s, then with all 1s, then with random numbers. The original data on the disk will now be difficult to salvage; however, it may still be possible to salvage so for additional security, run the Cipher.exe command multiple times.

Can't delete a file? Unlocker - it's great for servers too.

We have been using this free utility for a while now on our servers at work. when you get those anoying files that you just can not delete then give Unlocker a try.

• When you get messages such as...
• Cannot delete file: Access is denied.
• There has been a sharing violation.
• The source or destination file may be in use.
• The file is in use by another program or user.
• Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

Then get Unlocker installed form http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/, it's free!

OpenOffice.org 3.0 is out in Beta

The first beta of OpenOffice.org 3.0 is out.

The office suite has some major refits, there's added support for Open Document Format and Microsoft's own Office 2007 formats as well as improvements when it comes to collaborative spreadsheet editing and image crop features.

Both Writer and Calc, the word processor and spreadsheet applications in OpenOffice benefit from a number of enhancements.

OpenOffice 3.0 will be the biggest challenge Microsoft Office will be facing, as it brings other features like extensive formating and native PDF export.

click on the screenshots for larger views and visit here to get it downloaded. http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/