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Get the basics with Manager Free Accounting Software

Businesses of all sizes rely on accounting software to help manage their finances. It's been our experience that many of the available programs don't really make the grade; they're often either too unintuitive or lacking in important features. Unfortunately, Manager Free Accounting Software falls into this category of accounting programs that failed to impress us. It's definitely not the worst program we've seen, but the absence of a few important features combined with a lack of documentation kept us from being too enthusiastic about it.

The program's interface is rather sparse, but in a … Read more

Here's why Obama is visiting Intel

On Wednesday, President Obama is due to visit an Intel plant in Arizona. Here's why.

Obama aims to highlight manufacturing in America--one of the State of the Union's themes--and it's hard to find a better example of that than the world's leading chipmaker. Intel is now one of America's foremost manufacturers, boasting some of the most sophisticated manufacturing facilities in the world, many of them sprinkled throughout the U.S.

Its development fabs (fabrication plants) in Oregon are the most cutting-edge of its leading-edge factories and have already received one presidential visit, in February … Read more

Cobra JoyRide transforms Android phones into driving machines

With the help of Cobra's newest charger, your Android phone can automatically reconfigure for driving when connected to your car.

The Cobra JoyRide is no ordinary car charger. This 12-volt plug utilizes the Android Open Accessory framework to automatically trigger the launch of a companion app on an Android phone when connected via its micro USB port.

The Cobra JoyRide app features a car-specific interface that presents the user with large buttons to trigger functions such as voice command, hands-free calling, or launching a GPS navigation app. The JoyRide app can also automatically trigger the changing of phone settings--for … Read more

Quanta sues AMD over defective chips

Quanta has sued Advanced Micro Devices over a defective chip used in an NEC laptop.

Quanta Computer, the world's largest contract manufacturer of laptop computers, sued AMD for breach of contract, alleging the chipmaker sold defective products, as first reported by Bloomberg.

The suit is centered on the ATI RS600ME, an integrated graphics solution, an AMD spokesperson told CNET. Integrated graphics chips include other circuitry and also act as a chipset, which supports the main central processing unit or CPU.

"AMD and its ATI Technologies Inc. unit sold chips that didn't meet heat tolerances and were unfit … Read more

Add effects to your images with Photo Frames & Effects Free

Photo Frames & Effects Free is a basic image editor with a handful of special image enhancements. It's definitely not the most impressive or comprehensive image editor we've seen, but for simple tweaks and effects it's not a bad choice.

The program's interface is plain and intuitive, with a tabbed menu giving users access to editing features, effects, and filters. The editing menu contains the basics, such as rotating and resizing tools and white balance and contrast controls, though we were surprised to find that the program doesn't seem to have a cropping feature. The … Read more

Why are two soccer stars making out in EA game?

I sometimes wonder how mischievous those who create video games really are.

They toss in unexpected witticisms, facial expressions, and idiosyncratic actions--just for the sheer fun of it. But what could have been going on among EA's FIFA 12 development team to create the stunning action I have, well, embedded here?

For at the end of what seems to be entirely innocent sporting action, pony-tailed Andy Carroll of Liverpool and goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski of Arsenal collide and then start snogging.

Should you not be familiar with that term, it is the colloquial English for kissing. And what happens here--thank … Read more

Charge two iPads at once with Qmadix Twin Tablet Charger 4.2

To many of you, one USB car charger is just as good as the next, but if you've ever tried to plug your shiny new iPad or massive screened smartphone into a cheapy charger, odds are you quickly learned how wrong you were.

Not all powered USB ports are created equally. Most USB car chargers output about 0.5A of charging power, which is a massive jump over the original "low load" USB standard of just 0.1A. However, tablets require a bit more juice still than these powered ports can supply. In the case of the … Read more

Spiff up your menus with MooO TransparentMenu

MooO TransparentMenu is a free utility that lets you make your Windows menus semitransparent and change their color scheme. Why would you want to do that? Well, as the developer points out, sometimes it just looks better. Transparency is one of the cooler Aero features in Windows because it lets you see what's behind a window without obscuring its content. Applying it to context menus in Windows is a great idea; TransparentMenu makes it happen.

TransparentMenu's installer let us choose whether to create a desktop icon or start menu shortcut, but the program's main interface is its … Read more

Wee, twee, and free games from KlickFu

KlickFu is a small suite of free desktop toys. Classic time-wasters, the games and enhancements don't really "do" anything, let alone accomplish anything beyond creating a brief diversion. KlickFu makes it easy to share your efforts on Facebook, should you want to.

KlickFu's Get Started page briefly summarizes its features, though most of the time you manage and access them from the program's system tray icon. Dragster Photos displays a photo from your Pictures library (or any folder) when you drag your cursor to highlight an area of your desktop. We do that accidentally now … Read more

Speed Dial your way through Firefox

Sugestron Speed Dial is a free Firefox add-on that lets users quickly return to any of their eight most frequently used Web sites. That's nothing new, you say, but Speed Dial also examines browser tabs and other non-Web locations, and it works automatically by analyzing your browsing habits. You can open pages with keystrokes, pin pages into position, and remove them quickly from the Speed Dial browser tab.

Speed Dial downloads, installs, and configures like any Firefox add-on. We opened the add-ons manager and clicked Speed Dial's More link, which took us to its program page. The page … Read more