Here’s a free, easy to use undelete and file recovery tool called Recuva – and from the same company that provides my favourite cleanup program CCleaner.

When you delete a file, the contents of that file are not usually overwritten or removed straight away. The space used by that file is marked as “available” so that it can be used the next time data is written to your hard drive. As long as your old data is not overwritten by something new, there’s a good chance you can recover that deleted file.

This is where utilities like Recuva come in. They can scan the available space and the control information on the hard disk to identify files that might be recoverable.

Recuva starts with a Wizard that allows you to specify what drives to scan, and what classes of files to look for.

For example did Microsoft Word crash or did you forget to save that important Word document. No problem because Recuva can intelligently rebuild Word documents from their temporary files! In fact, Recuva can get back documents, emails, music files and can even help you to recovery from damaged or formatted disks. It also works on any rewritable media you may have.

It doesn’t matter if you need to recover priceless photographs from your digital camera’s memory card, files you backed up to an external hard drive, or the documents you carry around every day on your flash stick, Recuva’s got it all covered.

If you listen to music on an iPod, this program can recover files directly from the iPod’s drive. Even though you can’t access files on your iPod directly, Recuva can. You don’t have to worry about losing music from iTunes or your iPod any more.

For pro photographers, Recuva even supports the Nikon RAW and Canon RAW (.CRW) formats.

If you are feeling adventurous you can even use the program’s advanced interface and have it scan a specific drive you specify, and then filter the results based on type or name.

If you are looking for a good undelete and file recovery tool look no further than Recuva. I’ve certainly added it to my computer repair kit.

Find out more about Recuva from the developers website – http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Partition Assistant Home Edition 3.0 is the free version of this excellent Windows partition management utility. And its certainly one of the most easy to use partition management tools I’ve ever come across!

Despite being a free program, this application still incorporates all the features you will need to successfully manage and create hard disk partitions.

You can not only create new partitions, but also resize, move, delete, merge, and split already existing partitions, with full support for both NTFS and FAT32 file systems.

The only downside, is that this free version only works in Windows 32 bit installations and not 64 bit. So for example, Windows Vista 32 bit will run Partition Assistant Home Edition and do a great job in managing your drives partitions but the 64 bit version will not. If you have a 64 bit version of Windows you will have to buy the Professional Edition 3.0 which runs in both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows.

Partition Manager Assistant 3.0 has many functions which the Windows “Disk Manager” doesn’t have, such as resize system partition, extend partition and shrink partition. These operations cannot be handled via the Windows built-in partition manger, so Partition Assistant is needed if you wish to carry out these tasks.

Far from the lack of flexibility of older partition managers Partition Assistant comes with a long list of features:

• Extend NTFS partition without restarting computer.

 

• Resize and Move partition to optimize disk space management.

 

• Merge two or more partitions into a larger one.

 

• Split one partition into two or more.

 

• Clone/Copy Disk, Clone/Copy Partition.

 

• Create, Delete and Format partition.

 

• Convert file system from FAT to NTFS.

 

• Wipe permanently sensitive data to prevent any recovery.

 

• Wipe hard drive, Wipe Partition.

 

• Repartition by drag & drop mouse on a disk panel.

 

• Support resizing NTFS and FAT32 file system.

 

• Support Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7 (Only 32 bit).

 

If you download Partition Assistant you will be able to play around with your hard disk’s partitions almost as if they were simple folders.

Before going into other advanced options, the program can perform a thorough exploration of your disks to provide you with in-depth information about your existing partitions (if any). This program can also be used to check your hard drive, and while it won’t display you any information about the S.M.A.R.T. status, it can launch chkdsk to check the file system for errors and it can even scan for bad sectors.

Other basic functionality includes label partition, file system conversion (from FAT to NTFS), drive letter change, or the well-known partition creation, deletion, and formatting options.

It is in its advanced functionality that this program really shines. Here you can easily change the amount of space dedicated to a certain partition, either shrinking or extending it. You can not only resize it in any way, but also put two partitions together, or split a large partition into smaller ones. You can move them, hide or unhide them, wipe them away from your disk for good, or perform repartitions in your hard drive – without formatting your existing partitions or reinstalling your Windows Operating System.

Amazingly, version 3 comes with a new feature that allows you to clone/copy a full disk or a given partition, moving every file in that disk or partition to another without any data loss.

With Partition Assistant Home Edition 3.0 you can rest assured that all the functionality that has made this product stand out from the rest is there for free – no time limitation, no reduced performance, no disappointing surprises.

Just make sure you are running a 32 bit version of Windows before you download it.

At QBS PC Help we can offer you a Free web based e-mail account which supplies you with a unique internet address – yourusername@qbsmail.zzn.com.

This Free email account is a great alternative to other email accounts and is a good catchall account for all those online sign ups you do as you browse and shop on the Internet.

Get A free eBook

This Free email account comes with our compliments. Sign up now!

And just for signing up, you will receive a free eBook all about adding Memory Modules and Graphic Cards to your Windows computer. Find out more.

If you use Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Firebird its far better to view all your mail on a mail server before you download it to your computer. This is a worthwhile security approach, especially now that numerous emails can carry unwanted payloads onto your computer or try to get you to click a link that could take you to a fraudulent log in page of a ‘well known bank’. This practice is called ‘Phishing’ and is one of the fastest growing threats on the Internet. The threats often arrive in an email that contains a link taking you to a fraudulent Web site appearing to be valid (looking just like your bank or mortgage company) so that you’ll enter your personal information without realising what is really happening. The crooks aim to steal your valuable personal information such as user names, passwords, credit card numbers, and Social Security numbers. To combat threats such as this I use Mailwasher Pro on all my computers.

MailWasher is a spam detection and mail preview tool that allows you to check your mail on a web server and delete any spam before you download it to your local computer. It can notify you when new mail arrives and automatically mark suspicious messages, so you can preview and delete them.

There are 3 levels of spam detection, and you can specify your own filters. MailWasher also offers the option to exclude your friends from spam checking and check mail against public blacklists.

The free version of Mailwasher is limited to one POP3 email account. If you have more than one account you will need to purchase the Pro version of MailWasher.

Check this link for more detail about the paid version – http://www.mailwasher.net/frequently-asked-questions.

The Free version of Mailwasher can be downloaded here – http://www.mailwasher.net/mailwasher-free

I am currently preparing a new eBook all about PC maintenance and repairs and I found this handy tool during my research phase, when looking for a good free program to recover a lost password from a Windows XP installation. In other words, a free program that can quickly find the product key for Microsoft Windows so that it can be reinstalled by a user.

The result of this search found Magical Jelly Bean’s Keyfinder. This great little tool can easily find the product key (CD Key) for several versions of Windows and a few versions of Office, it then lets you print them for safekeeping. What a great find!

The free version works on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Office 97, and Office XP.

To work on later versions of Windows such as Vista and Windows 7 you will have to buy the paid version called ‘Recover Keys’. This can find the CD keys for more than 2000 programs, including the newest versions of Windows 7, Microsoft Office 2010, Adobe Photoshop CS3, CS4, CS5, Nero, lots of games and other software. The list of supported programs is almost endless.

However to download the free but limited version of Keyfinder please follow this link to CNet – http://download.cnet.com/Magical-Jelly-Bean-Keyfinder/3000-18487_4-10079600.html

In the past, the all singing and dancing Nero Burning Rom was renowned for slowing your system down or even crashing your PC so that a restart was needed before you could start using Nero again!

Times have changed, and the latest version of the Nero suite, version 10, runs really well on WindowsXP, Vista and Windows 7. It is perfectly stable and speeds through its tasks at a fair rate of knots.

We have been using this suite of tools for about five months without any problems at all. Just point Nero 10 to what you want to do and then it does it!

Nero 10 can handle all sorts of burning, copying, recoding and recording tasks. It includes advanced video editing features, a media organizer and player, burning software, reliable backup technology and special multimedia tools to enhance your music, photos and videos.

So full marks to Nero for this latest iteration of their suite.

The open-source browser entered Release Candidate 3 yesterday, but that was only to mop up some outstanding issues with the Mac OS X version of the browser.

Mozilla said the Windows and Linux versions were ready for launch after RC2.

“We have a lot of indicators that help us understand when the product is ready for release: feedback from our pre-release milestones, excitement in the community and the press, availability of compatible Add-Ons, and a large active beta community helping us ensure that the release is compatible with all the various sites on the internet,” Mozilla claims on its Developer News website.

Source: PC Pro

I’ve now been using Ora Time and Expense for more than 7 months and it has really helped in tracking the time I spend on web design, repairing PC’s and calculating PAYE for several local companies.

This great little time saver is ideal and can be used for tracking all the hours you spend on business and personal projects. It can also generate time-sheets, expense reports and invoices if you need them!

It has customisable templates in xml format and new templates can be added to the Ora templates folder to further customise things to your liking.

The application is now at version 1.1.8. There have been many improvements since Ora Time and Expense became a winner of the ‘Adobe AIR Developer Derby Best Business HTML Application’ in June 2007.

In particular the task timer can now be paused and resumed. And the duration of each task is clearly displayed in hours and minutes.

It just a great little program and it works so well. It also works in the background and does not impact on your computers performance at all.

To get your own copy of Ora Time and Expense visit the developers web site at – www.johnwu.com/ora