10 Things to Love About the iPhone

10 things to love about the iPhone
I took delivery of my iPhone at the start of September, the start of a trying month personally that saw me out of the office for very long periods and only in touch with the world via my phone. It was a baptism of fire for me and the device.

You will have seen the adverts, played with it in phone shops, looked over fellow commuters' shoulders, borrowed your friend's ... great isn't it? Or is it?

In this article I touch on some of the best things about the device that have wowed me completely. Or even just a bit. And to maintain the celestial karmic balance I have a companion article on some of the things that drive me absolutely nuts. There's enough material for both articles, I assure you!

So here we go, in reverse order, the 10 things that you should love about the iPhone!

10. Voicemail organisation
One of the cutest features of the device is the way it organises your voicemail for you. No more phoning the voicemail number, listening to all the messages in your mailbox in the order they arrived to get to the ones you want to hear. There they are, in a list, with real names instead of phone numbers when the number is in your contact list. You can go straight to the message you want and avoid the junk calls.

You aren't limited to the time limit on saved messages that your phone provider imposes - they will stay on your device as long as you need them. It's even got deleted file recovery, with deleted messages staying in your trash can until you commit the delete.

9. SMS text organisation
If you like the way the iPhone manages your voicemails, you'll love the SMS organisation even more. SMS messages are organised by third party name as before, but even better when you drill down by third party the messages themselves are displayed, in order, as a series of quotes like an instant messaging dialogue, so you can see the whole conversation. So good, so obvious, so why hasn't it been done before?

8. Onscreen keyboard
One of the things that strikes you about the iPhone is the absence of any keyboard or stylus. In fact it's almost devoid of buttons altogether, which is one of the criticisms I would level against the iPhone.

The absence of a keyboard was one of the reasons I delayed switching to the iPhone in the first place. I work out of the office probably 60% of the time and my PDA is often my only link with my business while I am out of the office. Sending email via a T9 keypad is not ideal, and most soft keyboards I have see to date have been frustratingly slow. I have had a couple of PDAs with slide-out keyboards and these can be satisfactory, but they also make the device heavier, thicker and less attractive as a telephone handset.

The iPhone soft keypad is surprisingly good. I watched some demos on YouTube before I ordered the iPhone yet had nagging doubts about how realistic they were. I need not have been concerned, however: It really is as good as the demos suggest. The auto-correction works by comparing what you type with the keys around the key you strike, so if you hit an "h" instead of a "g" it will pick this up and correct your mistake.

It isn't perfect, however. I have consistent problems reaching the space bar and seem to hit the letter "b" instead. The correction picks up faulty key presses, but won't necessarily correct a mis-spelling if you put too many or too few letters into the word. You also need to be around 60-70% accurate with your key presses or the algorithm gives up. Rejecting an auto-correction suggestion requires that you hit the minuscule "x" at the end of the suggestion, rather than a dedicated key or backspace as in most Windows applications, and this can be really difficult.

But overall the keyboard works well and, I have to admit, is more usable than the keypads on most of the Windows Mobile PDAs I have had. I'm still not sure whether I prefer it to handwriting recognition with a stylus, but I can live with it.

7. iPod on a phone
Although it lacks the intuitive touch wheel interface of the original and best iPod, the iPhone, like the iTouch, makes up for it with its full screen iPod player interface that gives you faster and more direct access to media stored on the device. I prefer the wheel of the iPod, but I admit it's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other.

Although the 8GB or 16GB memory of the iPhone is shared between the iPod features and other storage-dependent applications, I can still store over 3,000 songs which is more or less my entire CD collection. I can play movies too, and the display is more than adequate for doing so, but a typical movie takes up to 2GB of storage so of course I have to "budget" for it.

All in all the iPhone serves me well as a media player, especially as my BMW has the direct iPod interface built in to the iDrive, so I can access my music library through the car's steering wheel controls and navigation display.

6. Motion sensors and landscape mode (to a point)
The iPhone is jam packed full of sensors. Proximity sensors so it knows you are using it as a phone. Light sensors to adjust brightness. Motion detectors to know you are waving the thing around (used to great effect in "Lightsaber Unleashed" - a free demo game on iTunes).

The motion detectors are used to greatest effect to in Safari and document browsers to detect when you tilt the screen to view it in landscape mode. Document too side to fit readably onto the screen? Just rotate the device and it will change the screen orientation. Cute!

The only problem is that implementation of the feature seems to be application dependent and is not consistently deployed across all applications on the device. So reading and typing mail does not benefit from the feature, for example, while email attachments (see below) do.

5. Full web browser on a phone
I'm not a great Safari fan in general, preferring Firefox on the Mac and IE on the PC. That said, the implementation of Safari on the iPhone is without doubt the best mobile browser I have seen to date.

It supports CSS and Javascript and will support Silverlight in the future, but it does not support Flash at present. With the screen rotated to landscape mode you can generally read most websites directly on the iPhone screen, while the "pinch" metaphor (placing two fingers on the screen and moving them together apart) zooms in or out to allow small text or fine detail to be viewed. Touching on-screen controls like text boxes and menus zooms in onto the control making it easy to complete browser-based forms. The whole browsing experience is smooth, intuitive and engaging.

4. Native support for PDF and Office document formats
As a "dyed in the wool" Microsoft user, this feature has wowed me more more than almost anything else on the device.

The iPhone renders all "standard" Office formats (Word, Excel and Powerpoint) as standard, without any plug-ins. And not just Office 2003 - the extensible Office 2007 formats are supported as well! The iPhone supports rotation to view documents in landscape format, complete with pinch zoom.

Sadly you cannot edit Office documents as standard, although a number of publishers are planning to offer document editors and spreadsheets in the future. However for 80% of remote working scenarios I find the device suits me perfectly.

3. WiFi and 3G stacks
The original iPhone whetted appetites for mobile computing but soon disappointed Europeans due to its lack of support for 3G. That of course is a thing of the past with the Mark II device.

I have been more impressed by the device's WiFi capabilities, however. Although battery consumption is less than ideal with wireless switched on, the WiFi stack performs really well, particularly in larger office and public environments where you move in and out of range or between access points, sometimes using different protocols, on a constant basis. It supports a number of security protocols including certificate-based WPA-2 and TKIP and can interact with Microsoft-centric enterprise security deployments.

You configure the device to join new networks automatically and of course once you have set up access to a network it will reconnect automatically the next time you are in range. It works really, really well - so well that frankly you can afford to forget all about it. Which is how it should be, frankly.

2. Ease of adding applications
The basic iPhone provides basic email, calendar and contacts management alongside the Safari web browser, camera and iPod application. It also has a superb aGPS and Google maps which is surprisingly good, although the battery consumption with location services switched on renders the device almost unusable in my opinion. In other words, the iPhone offers a fairly reasonable set of basic mobile productivity applications.

So what do you do if you need more? The answer is iTunes AppStore, an online service accessible from the iPhone that enables you to search and download applications that are charged against your iTunes account. So far I have mostly downloaded sample applications and free utility ware, which is enough to get a feel for what is out there and appreciate the very straightforward installation and updating process. I have only bought one application so far - iBlogger, a generic blogging writer to connect to my CMS and blog. The process is seamless and transparent, from the user's standpoint, and exactly what the user needs.

The idea of extensibility is a good one. This is where the crossover from computing and PDAs into the world of the mobile phone really has benefited the consumer. But for the consumer to benefit completely there has to be adequate choice.

To date Apple has been successful in attracting software publishers to the game with a powerful development kit and simple distribution model. I appreciate the concerns that some publishers have over the stranglehold that Apple maintains over the distribution channel, rather like Sony with the PlayStation, and time will tell whether the Apple developer engagement model continues to attract the best developers.

Right now what the iPhone lacks as standard is a task management tool that interfaces with Microsoft Exchange and a more advanced set of editing tools that offer basic features like cut and paste (that's right, iPhone does NOT allow you to cut and paste text while editing). I don't know if any such applications exist on the AppStore and I haven't looked yet because frankly I would expect these to be provided by Apple as standard and hope that a future firmware update will provide them.

If my impatience gets the better of me I will go and look in the AppStore and I will probably find what I am looking for.

1. Great design (to a point)
Apple has done a phenomenal job with the iPhone. It is gorgeous! My iPhone is probably the most elegant and iconic object I have ever owned. That's right, not just the most elegant phone, or PDA, or mobile computer - as an exercise in pure physical design it excels.

The glossy surface is hard to keep clean and within minutes is covered in finger marks, but I find that wiping with a barely moist chamois leather is enough to restore it to its full glory.

Difficulties in keeping it clean aside, it is also pretty robust and usable day to day. I have dropped it a few times onto hard floors with no apparent ill effects and it feels really solid in the hands. I don't bother with a case and simply slip it into my jeans pocket (front or back) and usually forget that it's there.

The user interface is remarkable - mostly. The pinch zoom and fast list scrolling are excellent. Adding, deleting and moving application icons on the home screen is intuitive and can be mastered in minutes.

However the good parts of the UI are so good that the gaffs in design - the inability to collapse large directory trees in mail folders, the absence of a file manager, the lack of a cut and paste feature - stand out even more starkly and underline the genesis of the device.

The point is that the iPhone is the product of a prolific and brilliant yet highly introspective group of engineers. It is design untrammelled by any notion of reality or practicality, particularly in the corporate context. In most respects, and I mean probably 80% of the product in this case, the outcome is wonderful. The 80% is so good I can almost forgive Apple the 20% of absolutely essential features that are missing. For now!

Home Based Business Workshop Part Two

What equipment do I need?

The different types of work available to a home-office business is almost unlimited and is certainly equal to the number of tasks performed on a computer by anyone sitting in a cubical or at a desk in any office anywhere in the world.

There are basic equipment and software requirements regardless of the type of assignments you intend to target for your home-office. We will look at those essentials and give recommendations of some great free stuff that will really add value to your home-office business by increasing the number of projects you can apply for.

PC, Mac or Laptop - Ideally this should be a piece of equipment less than two years old to ensure it has sufficient operating capacity to meet all your needs

A reliable high-speed broadband/DSL internet connection
Those are the only absolutely vital pieces of equipment you will need to set up your home-office business and start applying for remote jobs and projects. Of course there are other pieces of equipment your home office will need later on and most are already a common component in the most basic of family computer packages.
Scanner
Printer
Fax
Scanners, printers, fax machines and even all-in-one combos are available at all computer stores and these days they are relatively inexpensive. If for any reason you don't have the funds to invest in equipment right away and all you have is a lap-top and an internet connection; you really can get by with just that for quite some time.
There are few projects and assignments that require you to have the equipment with well over 90% of basic office admin jobs being completely paperless. But if it is a case of getting by until you can get the equipment then you can find the facilities to scan print or fax at most local libraries and internet cafes.

Do I need a website?

I knew you would be thinking about this quite early on; so I will touch on that briefly.

You do not need a website straightaway and not having a website will not stop you from getting work or running your home office business. Your website is something that we will talk about in depth when we discuss your online presence.

However you should get yourself some cheap web hosting - firstly so you can purchase and register your desired domain giving you the domain email that you need to communicate with any employers you get immediately, using the brand identity you will ultimately be marketing.

Some freelancers are content with using a Gmail address, but if you intend to build yourself into a recognizable and branded business unit that must be perceptual as well as actual; so identity is important.

And of course once you have all the physical elements of your home based office business set-up you are then ready to work on your website straight away as soon as you ready. I will talk about structuring your website in later posts; but for now purchase a domain name at the very least - there is a button link to a good provider that I use myself on the right of the page.

Okay, so now to look at the software other essential resources you will need...

An office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and all those capabilities you would associate with the likes of office software suites such as Microsoft Office, Works and Corel; to name a few.

It is highly recommended that you also take advantage of an open source software suite such as OpenOffice which can read and write files from all the other office software programs; it is completely free of charge and can be found at Openofficedotorg

As many of the popular instant messengers as possible - i.e. Yahoo Messenger & Windows Messenger

A Skype account - Skype is a free software application that allows you to make free voice and video calls to other Skype users - There are also very reasonable packages available where you can make telephone calls to landlines and cell phone numbers worldwide as well as being able to purchase your own Skype telephone number - you can even choose the area code you want.

It is fast becoming the preferred method of communication by employers; the free aspects of Skype to Skype communication, the low cost of calling packages combined with a generous fair use policy set at 10,000 minutes a month also makes Skype a sensible, reliable and inexpensive communication solution for your home office.

Package costs range from $8 to $16 per month depending on whether you want just domestic or international calls; you can also have your own phone number that you can use online or from any Skype compatible own cell phone.

The maximum annual cost for a Skype phone number and unlimited international phone calls is $242 - this is cheaper than many of the regular phone and cable companies.

But to start with all you need is to actually download the Skype application at http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/get-skype/on-your-computer/windows/

For your home-based business you will only need to consider one of the calling packages once you start applying to projects that require make and receive phone calls

File storage, File back-up and File transfer are all functions that you will need to have readily available on an ongoing basis. You have to remember that all the files on your computer, both your personal files and clients work in progress and completed work that is ready for delivery are all vitally important; and if anything happens to your computer and that is the only place you have your files stored then you have lost it all.

There are several ways to store and back-up files; the simplest method is to transfer your files to CD or to an external hard drive on a regular basis; or if and when you do have web-hosting there will be generous file storage included in any package.

What you then also have to bear in mind is that, not only do you need some secure storage for your files but you also need to be able to receive files from your employers and be able to deliver drafts and completed work to them.

Most email hosts cannot receive or send files larger than 10MB and you will have to transfer larger files on a regular basis, so you will need a simple and reliable solution.

There are many options on the internet; if you perform a search with phrases such as 'free file transfer' of 'free file storage' you will find lots of sites where you can sign-up for a free membership. With most of the resources you will find there is always a free membership level that gives you limited use of the service.

Even though most of them offer very generous free file storage space at the basic member level, uploading and downloading files is slow; the faster priority service being reserved for premium membership accounts that pay a monthly or annual fee.

Here are two resources that I strongly recommend as they give the best function and control in the storage and transfer of files at the free basic account level and offer the best value for money at the premium account level should you need to upgrade in the future.

4shared.com is a resource that gives you 10GB of space at the free account level and allows you to share as many files as you want that are no larger than 200MB each. You are able to manage your files via the website or alternatively you can download the desktop application. When sharing of file is selected by you a URL link is created for you to provide to the people you want to give the file; you also have the option of including password protection access to any shared file.

Upgrading to a premium account will increase your storage space to 100MB and the maximum single file size for transfer to 5GB. The cost is $9.95 per month with discounts available for 3, 6 and 12 month packages

https://www.dropbox.com/ This resource gives you 2GB of free storage space, but you can increase this by inviting friends and earning an additional 250MB per friend that accepts up to a maximum of 8GB; so 10GB total available with a free basic account. Files are shared by inviting the intended recipient to share the folder that the files are contained in; of course you can create one file for each individual or invite multiple people to a folder for multi person collaboration. Once an invitation to share a file is accepted that person can take delivery of anything that is put in the folder.
There are two levels of premium account - 50GB of storage for $9.99 per month or $99.00 per year or 100GB of storage for $19.99 per month or $199.00 per year.

An additional feature with either of the premium accounts on Dropbox is that you have permanent file recovery; any files that are deleted or removed from any folder that you have created can be retrieved at any time.

Okay so that is everything you need to get started on the task of finding remote jobs and projects and earning your income from your home based office business.

Now you need to know where to find the work, how to construct your application proposals to maximize your success and what viable additional revenue streams there are available to you - I will cover all of that in future posts [http://www.yourarmchairoffice.com] real soon.

You can earn steady income online from the comfort of your own armchair.

Unstructured Information Management - What You Don't Know Can Hurt You!

Companies large and small create an impressive amount of data, including email messages, documents and presentations. Most of that data is unstructured, existing primarily on corporate file servers, employee desktop and notebook computers. Industry analysts estimate that this unstructured data accounts for 80% of all corporate information, and expect it to grow 50% or more each year.

Unstructured Information is Unmanaged Information Unstructured data is typically unmanaged. The file system on which this information resides typically is not monitored and the content is practically invisible to employees, auditors or corporate compliance officers. In an effort to provide a greater degree of visibility, control and management of this information to meet compliance reporting requirements, companies have implemented one or more technologies, each of which has advantages and disadvantages:

Enterprise search ? An enterprise search engine is an effective way to index and find documents that contain certain terms. Most are easy to implement and require only a modicum of regular maintenance. Unfortunately, most enterprise search engines are tuned to find all the documents that may contain a particular term, rather than a specific document that may be required by an auditor. It is left to the user to winnow through all the returned documents to find what they need, which can be a time-consuming and costly exercise. Additionally, search engines are mostly lacking in providing the ability to manage the documents it indexes.

Enterprise Content Management ? ECM systems can effectively manage many types of content and can provide access and version control, both of which are effective aspects of information management. ECM systems also tend to be very expensive to setup and maintain. These systems typically require an organization to purchase server and user licenses, implement policies and processes for using the system, and train its users. Because of these costs, companies often limit their ECM implementations to specific areas of their business or types of data, such as documents that pertain to finance. According to many analyst organizations, ECM systems are being used to manage approximately five percent of today?s corporate information.

File Backup ? Many companies attempt to solve the problem of document retention by creating regular backups of all the data on the network. These backups are saved to tapes, which are then stored offsite for disaster recovery purposes. Backing up all data regardless of its business value is an inefficient use of time and resources, increases the cost of tape storage and decreases the likelihood of rapid single file recovery, which is the most-used aspect of file backup.

Doing nothing ? This is the ?solution? that many companies choose for handling unstructured information. Unfortunately, the prevailing thought among many has been that unstructured information is insignificant and therefore does not require management. After all, most of this information ranges from personal files to draft documents or one of dozens of copies of sales presentations, the majority of which aren?t worth the cost required to manage them.

While most files aren?t worth managing, the risk comes from the small number of files that do matter. For instance, your Sarbanes-Oxley policy and procedure manual, which took valuable internal resources, a consulting firm, and many months to create, has likely been copied from the content management system specially created for finance-related documents. The next time you update that manual with critical information, you have fulfilled one aspect of the act by tracking and recording those changes in your records management system. However, what about the dozens of copies that may have spread across the network on shared file servers? How can you be certain those copies are deleted or updated to keep people from following old procedures or controls? If you aren?t doing anything to manage that data, you are leaving your company exposed and vulnerable.

Recognizing Valuable Information
Addressing these issues is key to an effective solution for Sarbanes-Oxley or any information governance initiative. Obviously doing nothing is not the answer. At the same time, it would be cost-prohibitive to manage all files as though they were critical business records. Therefore, the ability to specify which data is critical and worthy of this level of management is a crucial first step. If you are aware of the data?s value, you can make educated decisions as to the disposition of important data and create an appropriate retention policy.

Determining a data?s value is a result of effective information visibility and control.

Information Visibility ? The first aspect of recognizing valuable data requires that it be visible. While your compliance office may have access to all corporate information across the network, the sheer amount of data necessitates the use of technology to find and manage the appropriate documents.

Information Control ? To effectively manage and control unstructured information, you need a solution that allows you to copy, move, delete or tag documents with custom metadata; i.e., information about the document. Even better, the solution should provide an integrated policy engine that can be customized with your company?s information governance regulations. For instance, creating a policy mandates that any document on the employee network that contains a customer account number must be 1) tagged with custom metadata of ?Customer,? and 2) moved to a secured server or file archive system.

Data classification is an important aspect of information visibility and control. Several products have emerged or expanded into this space, to offer an all-embracing solution for complying with Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulations. By implementing one of these data classification systems, documents on your network can be located, opened and tagged according to the content found within each document. A typical classification workflow might look something like this:

1. Catalog ? The system scans the file systems, finding and collecting file metadata from hundreds of file types.

2. Classify ? Opening each document, the system classifies data according to file attributes and keywords or word patterns, and tags with custom metadata according to pre-set policies.

3. Search ? The system allows users to find desirable information based on a combination of metadata and full document text, utilizing standard Windows and UNIX access control lists.

4. Report ? The system should allow appropriate users to create and access summary or detailed reporting functionality.

5. Act ? Finally, the system should integrate actions, such as tagging files with custom metadata, setting retention and monitoring policies, and offering move, copy and delete functionality, again based upon an access control list.

To contrast, an enterprise search engine provides an efficient method to find content that contains the search term you need. But then what? If you wanted to copy, move, delete or perhaps tag the document with customized metadata, you would have to manually do so.

Data Retention, Availability and Recovery Retention is another aspect of corporate information that cannot be overlooked. While many companies elect to back up all data on a weekly or monthly basis, the cost of time and resources increases as the amount of data grows. Knowing what is in your data ? by making information visible, by tagging with metadata and by controlling access ? allows you to intelligently create a retention policy that moves or backs up only the data needed to comply with your corporate information governance policy or government regulation.

Most organizations use a backup solution that periodically copies data to tape or disk drives. An organization may back up its mission-critical data every night and all of its data every week. It may store the backup tapes for up to six months to guard against accidental deletions, send tape copies offsite as a safeguard against disaster and retain backup tapes long-term to meet regulatory requirements.

Lacking the means to gauge the value of the data, companies often take the safe route and back up all of it. Not only is the approach ineffective, it indicates inefficient data management and creates a potential risk. Storing data that is not required to be kept can be used against a company in the event of a lawsuit or regulatory compliance issue. In this respect, backing up data in its entirety creates a liability.

Corporations can meet regulatory data retention requirements, cut backup and recovery costs and manage risk by introducing file archiving into the mix.

A file archiving system uses data classification to determine the content?s value, then moves or copies files according to that value. File archiving systems can find and retrieve files based on their content. Any number of parameters can be used, including author, date, and customized tags such as ?SEC 17a-4? or ?Sarbanes-Oxley.?

This naturally leads us to the tiering of storage services. Backup and file archiving are natural places to start for providing tiered storage services, based upon the value of the data in your network.

As an example, consider a company that has 10 terabytes (TB) of data on production file servers. In the past, the company may have backed up critical files onto disk storage and then backed up all files onto tape once a week. The company catalogued the tapes, kept them for three months and then cycled them back through the process. New government regulations mandate that all data related to quarterly financial results must be kept for five years. Unfortunately, the company has no way to differentiate among the disparate types of data on its network. The company is forced to retain all of the data for five years, expanding the amount retained from 10 TB to 2.5 petabytes (PB). As data amounts double annually, so will the amount that must be stored. The company will find itself devoting more and more time and resources to data backup.

To solve this problem, let us assume that the company implemented a data classification system. By discovering the value of its unstructured information and tagging according to the value, the company copied 500 GB of financial reporting data to WORM storage for long-term retention and moved seven TB to tiered storage, which is backed up to tape every three months. The data in three-month storage would total 42 TB, compared with the 2.5 PB that would have been required if the data had not been archived. With tiered storage, the company significantly reduced backup time and resources, shrank the cost of production file storage and increased its IT service levels by freeing up personnel and data for other tasks.

Tiering your data storage services allows you to put SOX controls only around the data that pertains to your financial information and lock down the appropriate data on compliance-specific storage boxes.

Proving Compliance

The old adage is true: the best defense is a good offense. In the case of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, the best offense is to create and implement provable policies. Having a data classification system allows you to produce standard reports that show duplicate copies of applicable documents, that show who has accessed the file within a specific time period, and that monitor implementation of your information governance policies. With reporting functionality available in a dashboard implementation, you can think of your system as a burglar alarm: a deterrent to potential wrongdoing and a way to prove that you?re actively checking for compliance-related issues.

Best Practices
Implementing one of today?s data classification systems should be an integral part of your Sarbanes-Oxley best practices. Setting information governance policies fulfills a basic requirement. Active management of your unstructured data will find, tag and move content according to your corporate policies, lowering the risk that information will ?fall through the cracks? and potentially protect you from breaking the law. Creating a tiered storage system will allow you to set retention policies according to the value of the content, saving money and reducing risks. And proving compliance ? or at least show that you?re attempting to comply ? is sometimes the best way to meet and exceed current ? and future ? government regulations not only around financial systems but around employee and customer privacy as well.

Reducing Risk and Lowering Costs
In the end, the benefits of visibility and control of your unstructured information reduces risks ? of compliance violations, litigation exposure, untimely responses and privacy and security breaches ? and lowers costs through streamlined storage operations, improved service levels and automated policy-driven data management.

Tweak Your Windows and Make It Faster

Optimizing overall performance of your PC is definitely an important reality. The version of Windows today proves to have a better performance, which may relate the memory usage of other applications. For Windows monitoring as well as trouble shooting, Windows offers well-known tools like Task Manager, Resource Monitor, and MSConfig. These tools tend to be effective and easy to work with, however they represent only a tiny portion of what Windows system optimizing applications can accomplish. Many Windows optimizing programs provide you with levels of depth and detail that are intelligible and helpful merely to professional users, however, plenty of other tools can assist average users to find out what is happening behind the scene. Here is a free highlight.

These tools usually come with a combination of cost-free Windows programs which help users optimize, twist, repair, cleanup as well as accelerate your Windows. Some of the functionality you might be looking for are Disk Cleaner, Registry Cleaner, File Recovery, File Shredder, Auto Clicker, WiFi Hotspot Creator, Keylogger, Shortcut Fixer, File Splitter & Joiner, File/Folder Monitor, Resource Extractor, Empty Folder Remover and others for optimizing and boosting your system efficiency. It will certainly increase system speed, eradicate system fault, strengthen security and satisfy all the other expectations. Now let's uncover these functionalities.

Cleanup and Restore Registry

Your Windows registry is certainly one database of all the specifics of the PC and in addition the programs installed on the computer. The device's registry could become corrupted by spyware and viruses. Advanced Win Utilities Free is made available for those who really need to clean and repair their registry. Given a device registry cleaner & repair tool, Advanced Win Utilities Free can help you check out your registry for obsolete & damaging entries thereafter help you clean them up and fix your registry, take away errors & improve your Computer's functionality.

Clean Disk

If you hope to reduce the number of needless files on your local disk to release drive space and help the computer run even faster, try free disk cleaner tool. It takes away unnecessary or outdated flotsam and jetsam from your disk drives or other storage devices like USB drives. This disk utility even can provide secure file deletion, making certain that removed files are unable to be recovered again.

Protect Web Privacy

The integrated privacy cleaner software of Advanced Win Utilities Free is meant to secure the confidential and sensitive info through process of cleaning up the various track of the browsers like IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. With only a single click, free privacy cleaner makes it possible to clear off all of the cache, cookies, history, typed URLs, auto-complete info and Window's internet temp folder, run history, search history, download history, recent documents, and a lot more.

Backup Drivers

If you are experiencing an operating system reinstall or restoring a driver collapse, it has to be distressing to find the dated driver disc left behind in some dusty place, or even a whole lot worse, to surf one website to another to find a driver which is exactly compatible with your device. Backing up all of the drivers with Advanced Win Utilities Free is definitely the most dependable and most hassle-free method to prevent those from happening. It could actually output any driver you want and when you need it, just restore it from the prearranged directories. In addition, it exports browser cookies, IE Favorites and the PC registry to make them recoverable after crashes or other disasters.

Recover Deleted Files

Energized by the recent file recovery technology, the free data recovery tool is the most intensive file recovery method for regaining data via NTFS, FAT, FAT32, exFAT, HFS+, Ext2/Ext3/Ext4, UFS file systems. It helps get back deleted data like image, e-mails, docs, music, video, compressed files... from a range of storage devices including hard drives, USB drives, memory cards, and the like. Now, it is possible to restore the erased files caused by unintentional removal, disk formatting, virus attack as well as various other causes.

Shred Files

Advanced Win Utilities Free has free file shredder program to get rid of any unnecessary files & folders thoroughly and also wipe empty trash can to assure there's nothing recoverable. It contains 3 deletion methods to make sensitive or confidential info shredded permanently so that nobody can retrieve them.

Fix Shortcut

When you open up a file or image, it may create a shortcut in your system. When you delete these files or pictures, their shortcuts remain, this means you need to have shortcut fixer to look for obsolete shortcuts and eliminate them thoroughly. Advanced Win Utilities Free offers a shortcut fixer that will find all the shortcuts you have got on desktop, in Start menu or every spot of the PC, and delete orphaned or worthless shortcuts to keep your PC in order.

Remove Empty Folders

Empty folders are continually created while in uninstallation and deletion. It's a problem to take care of if you should keep overlooking them. Advanced Win Utilities Free could help you locate where the empty folders are and get rid of them in a single mouse click. It may search within the specific paths and allow you to leave out the hidden folders & computer system folders for stability purpose. Now sweep your computer and restructure the folders.

Find Duplicate Files

Duplicate files are really duplicates of each other, but yet have appearances in numerous places. They fritter away user's disk space and also, you may lose files once you delete a file assuming that there's an additional copy when in fact there is not! Advanced Win Utilities Free can scan for the duplicate data and eliminate them once and for all. It helps save your PC from lack of organization, free up storage space and reduce time waste when searching for files.

Encrypt Files

To actually safeguard your own documents, memos, password lists, investment details, plus more, you can easily add passwords to them to ensure that your essential info will not get in the wrong hands. File encryptor within Advanced Win Utilities Free is becoming an opportune application having the ability to secure different kinds of files to protect against modifying, duplicating and printing. Built-in with effective algorithms like for example Rijndael, Blowfish, DES, 3DES, etc., there isn't any chance to decrypt these files without your authorization.

Lock EXE Files

In case you share the computer with others, you might need to prevent one or two programs from being launched. As for instance, you probably don't want someone else to run the tax preparation, financing or message software. The free EXE lock has the ability to take care of these situations, as it enables you to secure any executable applications from non-authorized execution with password. This free EXE lock is ideal for keeping visitors away from your confidential information.

Password Management

For those who have many login IDs & passwords of the sites you use, it has to be difficult to remember them all. Unfortunately using exactly the same ID/password for all the accounts is definitely harmful - Advanced Win Utilities Free can help you fix this. The in-built password manager can hold numerous logins inside a password-protected file. You're able to store the ID and password of bank account, social sites, communication tools and many more. It also includes an innovative password generator for making strong yet easy-to-remember password. It doesn't save the passwords within the program or upload them to a server - you are the sole one that is aware of the logins.

Auto-Click Mouse

The free mouse auto clicker application is provided to automatically click the mouse button in any programs, web page or PC games and all screen areas you choose. This free auto clicker can simulate left & right click to free your finger from recurring mouse click. It's possible to preset the click times and the delay between two clicks. It aids you to make several easy yet quite time-consuming activities, allowing you to take pleasure in the carefree life without focusing on the computer.

Auto Shutdown

Advanced Win Utilities Free comes with an auto shut down manager to help you make shutdown schedule for your computer and that means you don't have to wait up till the job is over. It may set particular time, once, daily or weekly to auto execute the shutdown, restart, standby or possibly hibernate. It will run quietly in background without using up much system resources. It enables you to set keyboard shortcuts to shutdown/restart/standby/hibernate/log off instantly as you press the correct key combinations. The application can save lots of money on electricity use and let the computer rest more often.

Create WiFi Hotspot

If you wish to use the notebook computer as a WiFi router to give all your cellular phones as well as other devices the chance to get connected to the internet, you'll need the assistance of Advanced Win Utilities Free, with a WiFi hotspot creator that lets you specify the hotspot ID & security password and choose the connection you need. Merely some clicks, you can share your internet connections wirelessly. You can also have a clear view of the net connection info, the operations performed, the configurations changed as well as the working status.

Record Keystrokes

This invisible keylogger surveillance tool tracks all of the keystrokes typed on the computer in invisible mode. It enables you to look at each single keystroke typed, chat discussions, mail messages, names of printed files and check out the websites surfed and so on while you are away. It is possible to use it to monitor office staff to make sure that they are using company's resources as supposed; monitor online activities of children to keep them safe and not to mention monitor your spouse.

Monitor Files/Folders/Apps

Advanced Win Utilities Free is really a free file monitor application intended to keep track of your files or folders. It provides each file that is being modified, created, or removed to notify the users. This function comes handy if you monitor database servers as well as application log files. Now, you'll be able to promptly detect storage subsystem problems, unanticipated steep rise in disk consumption as well as proliferating files and folders in storage servers.

Free File Splitter Joiner

If you have a big file which needs to be delivered over the net to your pals, manager, families, or stored on external devices which are smaller in size, Advanced Win Utilities won't disappoint you. The built-in free file splitter joiner can split sizeable data including audio, video, document, graphic, compressed files like RAR and ZIP, etc. You can defined the size of the chunks before splitting to store them on DVD/CD or USB sticks, and afterwards join them to recreate the original file.

Resource Extractor

Sometimes you may find convenient resources in EXE/DLL files. The resources could possibly be icons, sound clips, AVI videos and some other small elements which could be used in your websites, cartoon, PowerPoint presentation, etc. Advanced Win Utilities Free comes with a resource extractor to extract aforesaid resources from any executable and DLL files. It might output the icons of all sizes so that you don't have to pay for the icons. It is easy to scan the System 32 directory for the resources. It features a Windows explorer-like user interface and you're able to clearly see the files and related information in a file tree.

Manage Windows Startup Programs

An adequate start-up manager software is incorporated to help keep control of the startup programs. The startup manager is able to control which programs ought to be launched on computer startup and which not. It tremendously speeds up your PC boot.

Uninstall Programs

The free uninstaller software is given to remove the installed programs you wouldn't want anymore. In addition, it manages to clear the entries to make sure there's nothing left behind in order that your computer resource can be proficiently used.