The nights are drawing in, but the pace of software release shows no sign of slowing down. It has been another busy week in the app world with a number of important releases including Uniblue PowerSuite 2012. This handy suite of tools includes everything you need to boost the performance of your computer, and if you don’t feel the need for quite such an extensive selection of utilities, you can pick and choose which you would like to use as there are also individual releases available. Uniblue RegistryBooster 2012 takes care of optimizing the registry, while Uniblue DriverScanner 2012 ensures that all of your drivers are up to date and Uniblue SpeedUpMyPC 2012 includes a huge range of options for boosting the performance of Windows.
If you like to get hands on with your computer, creating partitions is a great way to help keep different types of data separate from each other, and this is something that Parted Magic 11.11.11 can help with. This bootable Linux-based disc can be used to create and manage partitions in a range of file systems, and could be used to configure a dual boot system. Going down this route is not something that suites everyone though, and if you’d like to try out some of the new features of Windows 8, the Windows 8 Simulator Beta 1.0 enables you to do so without having to install a new operating system. You may prefer to simply get the look of Windows 8 without having to go to too much trouble, and this is something that you can do with Pulmon 2.0. This transformation pack gives you a take on the Metro interface of Windows 8. Should you decide that you would prefer to actually install the developer version of Windows 8, you will need to burn the image file to disc, and this can be achieved with the updated BurnAware Free 4.1.1.
Almost everyone has need for an office suite and if you don’t fancy shelling out on the likes of Microsoft Office, LibreOffice Productivity Suite 3.4.4 is available free of charge to cater for your word processing, spreadsheet and database needs. It may be the case that your writing requires a more powerful tool than a standard word processor and this is where Scrivener for Windows 1.0.1 FINAL can help, proving you with advanced word organization options that are ideal for lengthier documents including books.
Apple Store 2.0 for iOS has been updated to allow for in-store reservations as well as adding the ability to pay for good in an Apple store using your Apple account. If you use iTunes but don’t have a lot of love for Apple’s software, iTuner – The iTunes Companion can help to make it easier to use by providing access to common options from the system tray. Streaming media can be downloaded using URL Snooper 2.30.01 which reveals the web addresses you need to grab music and video files, and the updated Trillian 5.1 enables you to chat with friends on multiple platforms with newly added support for Skype. When you’re online with your iOS device, look no further than Hotspot Shield VPN 1.0.1, which compresses data to reduce data uses and also encrypts your data to help protect your privacy.
It has been a busy week for updates to web browsers, with Google releasing the latest version of Chrome -- Google Chrome 15.0.874.120 FINAL and Google Chrome Portable 15.0.874.120. New versions of the next version of the web browser, including a portable version were also released – Google Chrome 16.0.912.36 Beta and Google Chrome Portable 16.0.912.36 Beta – while anyone looking to peak further into the future can do so by installing Google Chrome Portable 17.0.932.0 Dev. To slightly less fanfare, Opera 11.60 (Tunny) Beta 1 was also released.
Not to be left out, Mozilla has unleashed a raft of releases including the all new Firefox 8 FINAL which is also available as a portable app – Firefox Portable 8.0.Firefox 9 Beta was also updated with more speed improvements, while Firefox Aurora 10.0a2 starts to see the introduction of interface changes. For those who like to be right on the cutting edge of browser development, there is Firefox 11.0a1 32-bit (Nightly) and Firefox 11.0a1 64-bit (Nightly) to test out, as well as Firefox 11.0a1 UX and Firefox 11.0a1 64-bit UX for those that are feeling even more adventurous.
But it is about more than web browser updates for Mozilla, and the latest version of the accompanying email client was also unveiled. Mozilla Thunderbird 8.0 FINAL does not have many new features worthy of note but there is also a portable version available in the form of Mozilla Thunderbird Portable 8. Rounding off this week’s well-rounded roundup is Mozilla Lightning 1.0 FINALwhich is a Thunderbird extension that adds a calendar option to Thunderbird to transform it into more of an Outlook-style PIM.