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If you've seen our Holiday Gift Guide, you'll notice the oh-so-desirable Red One modular videocam, which costs a staggering $17,500. Well, now you don't have to fork out so much for a Red system. The company has just announced the availability of the Scarlet 2/3, an affordable 3k-resolution video camera. That is, if you find $4,750 cheap.

Red initially unveiled this vidcam late last year with a price tag of $3,750 for just the body and a lens. However, the firm recently added more features to the modular system to justify for the $… Read more

One of the best Mac OS X tools in my arsenal of iPhone utilities is Ecamm Network's PhoneView, which lets you retrieve your call history, export contacts, play and save voice memos, search and save SMS messages, play and export music, download photos, and create, edit, and save notes. It even lets you use your iPhone as a disk drive.

Now an update to Phoneview has added three new key features that make the app even more useful.

The first new features let you retrieve MMS messages and view them later on your computer. (The previous versions only handled … Read more

KidsMouse for Windows is a suite of Flash-based games that is, according to the publisher's information, suitable for infants. We didn't have an infant handy and our cat didn't seem interested, so we tried the games ourselves. It turns out that KidsMouse is a great way to get kids acclimated to using a mouse while also working with numbers, letters, and colors.

As would be expected from a game for kids, the interface is incredibly simple, with 16 games represented in the menu by images. There is no Help file, but not much of a need for … Read more

Not all programs need to have tons of bells and whistles to be effective. TreeSize Free proves this point. Its approach and set up are as simple as it gets but it gives users detailed information regarding available free space on their computers.

This free program's user interface couldn't be easier to navigate. All you do is select a folder or a hard disk to scan and the program goes to work, quickly displaying the amount of space programs and files are taking up. Using the intuitive command buttons at the top of the window, you can choose … Read more

No need to rely on an abacus or fingers and toes once you have this free Calculator for Science Students in your toolbox. A variety of calculators, converters, references, and glossaries reside at your fingertips through this full-featured app.

This calculator launches a nicely designed, easy-to-use interface--slightly drab, but easy to comprehend. It offers a numeric keypad and buttons for performing a number of scientific calculations. Below the keypad are six tabs that provide access to a wide series of tools that will make a handy reference for science students and teachers. This application performed quickly and very well in … Read more

Quicksys RegDefrag might be the prettiest back-end utility we have ever come across. The Web 2.0-esque design almost makes us want to take back stars from other Registry defraggers.

An Options menu lets you manage several settings, including checking for updates automatically, adding RegDefrag actions to context menus, and managing system and Registry backups. You can also choose from one of 17 languages, including Magyar, Arabic, and two that wouldn't even show up on our screen. This program does two things: displays your Registry information and defrags. The program performed without a hitch for us, although it did … Read more

If you have ongoing tasks throughout the day, this desktop alarm will keep you on track to the tune of your favorite song. We didn't understand the name, but we loved what it had to offer.

MP3 Pizza Timer offers a sleek, easy-to-understand user interface composed of an oval-shaped window with the countdown clock at the top and buttons for selecting a target time (in military format) as well as the MP3s. There are also buttons for playing, stopping, and pausing the song. Shortcut buttons on both sides of the window let you add or remove time increments of … Read more

Advanced Desktop Shield installs an icon in the system tray that lets you access a nicely designed and easy-to-use interface. In our tests, saving a managing desktop layout was simple, and we mastered the process in less than two minutes, thanks to the clearly defined buttons and layout of the interface.

This application performed quickly in all our tests, and it restored changed desktop layouts quickly and without fail after multiple boots and restarts, even when we changed the wallpaper. If your PC has multiple users, this application offers a great method for each to have a customized desktop layout … Read more

With its tiny user interface, this powerful privacy program very quickly and securely shredded files and folders.

NShred opens with a very small (almost too small) user interface. It features minimal command buttons, which are all very straightforward. A Help menu is included, but most won't need it to get started; the process is as simple as clicking the Add Folder and File buttons. Using the Options button, we were able to choose from seven shred methods, including DoD and Gutmann. The program offers a brief explanation of each method, along with how many overwrite passes each performs. We … Read more