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Use Google Docs to create a weekly football pick sheet

The 2009 football season has arrived, and with it the need for somebody in the office to collect everyone's picks in the weekly football pool. Google Docs' forms function makes recording the pigskin prognostications as easy as siding with whoever's playing the Detroit Lions this week.

On the Google Docs main page, click New > Spreadsheet to open a blank worksheet. Click Form > Create a form to open the Edit form dialog. Give the form a name in the top text box. Type "Name" in the Question Title text box, choose Text in the Question … Read more

Clever window hider

Hide is an ingenious program that allows users to hide various windows with the press of a button. Unfortunately, the program's unintuitive interface makes some of its features difficult to use, which is a major drawback.

The program's interface is basic, with a box labeled Currently Hidden Windows and another labeled Program Group. It's not immediately clear what a user should do from here, and there's no Help file, but a bit of clicking around reveals that the meat of the program's functions is contained in the Settings. Here, users can set hot keys for … Read more

Misleading photo editor

While its name may conjure up images of animation, Cartoon Maker actually acts as a simple photo editor. While some may be disappointed, it does function well as a quick photo-editing tool.

The program's interface is very simple, allowing users full control with only a few button clicks and limited options. The program's Help file breaks every process down to the bare essentials, allowing users to learn quickly. To create a cartoon, simply bring up a picture by searching via a file tree. Next, users choose a cartoon option from the onscreen menu. The options for Distort and … Read more

Certain convertin'

Like many PC users, you probably have orphan files in strange, unreadable formats scattered throughout your hard drive. Or maybe you have folders full of files in different formats that you'd like to standardize. Or perhaps the program that once opened certain files is long gone and won't run on your current PC anyway, but you still want to access those files. Able Batch Converter can help. It can convert the formats of large batches of files all at once.

Batch Converter's simple, clear interface makes it a cinch to find files to convert, choose the new … Read more

Versatile world clock

FoxClocks is an extension that allows users to add clocks in multiple time zones to Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird. The program is easy to use and highly customizable, two characteristics that don't always show up together.

The program's interface is fairly intuitive, although users will find when they try to search for a specific location that the list is somewhat haphazardly organized. Fortunately, if you know what time zone you're looking for, you can customize the way the location displays. For example, we selected Central time in honor of a friend who just moved to Texas, but … Read more

Failed to produce results

This free program lets you performs searches by category and location. We would have liked to have seen more flexibility with the search categories, but of greater concern were that lack of any results in our test searches.

Kijiji Reader has a simple and pleasant user interface that is easy to navigate. A field for entering your keywords resides at the top, and tree-menus for selecting your search categories and locations reside on the left of the window. While the program offers a decent selection of search categories, you're limited to only those categories. Search locations are limited to … Read more

Sync up all your iCal calendars

BusySync is yet another application that will make you say, "Why didn't Apple think of that?" BusySync makes it extremely easy to sync up multiple iCal calendars between different computers on a home or office network, without any need for a central server. BusySync is easy to set up, and users can view and edit shared calendars, instantly and automatically publishing any changes--plus you can simply sync peer-to-peer, between different Macs, or even sync between a combination of individual Macs or calendars hosted on a server.

Even better, BusySync syncs with Google Calendar, too, so that means … Read more

Quick virtual desktops

There are many times when users wish they could have a secret desktop to hide things from wandering eyes. Sneaky Virtual Desktop offers a possible solution to users who need a quick place to cover their open documents.

This freeware embeds itself in the program tray as an inconspicuous black dot. Right clicking will give users a simple menu of options. Their desktops are numbered here (users can create up to 32), as well as options to create new desktops and delete old ones. There is also a simple settings menu that mostly lets users replace mouse clicking with hot … Read more

Exceptional file management

File Renamer Turbo offers users fast and easy file management. Even with a 75-file trial limitation, we got a very clear picture of this program's excellent file naming capabilities.

The user interface is so straightforward, even the most novice user will have no problems jumping right in. The large and colorful command buttons lead your eye in the right direction. We clicked the Add Files button and easily browsed for the files we wanted rename. Adding filters was a piece of cake: all we had to do was select the filter from a menu. We had two menu options--basic … Read more

First listen: Dolby Pro Logic IIz 'height' surround falls flat

The Dolby Web site is bubbling with excitement about its new processing trick, "With Dolby Pro Logic IIz, rain in a movie now seems to be actually falling on the listener's roof, concert videos bring a more intense sense of being at the performance, and orchestral works deliver more palpable depth, power, and connection." The "z" in Pro Logic IIz signifies the Z axis, otherwise known as height.

Sounds interesting, but when I setup and listened to the first receiver (an Onkyo TX-SR607) with Pro Logic IIz, the height speakers didn't lift my spirits.

Pro Logic IIz can, depending on the receiver's capabilities, either augment a 5.1 or 7.1 channel speaker system with two height channels. In other words, in a 5.1 channel system with Pro Logic IIz you'll have five speakers in the front of the room--left, center, right, left height, and right height--plus a surround speaker to both sides of the main listening position.

The 7.1 system with Pro Logic IIz uses the same speaker array--plus two rear surround speakers.

Once you have a receiver equipped with Pro Logic IIz, and wall mount the height speakers three feet or higher over the main left/right speakers, you're all set. You won't have to buy specially encoded movies or music.

According to Dolby, "Pro Logic IIz identifies and decodes spatial cues that occur naturally in all content--stereo and 5.1 broadcast, music CDs, DVDs, 5.1 and 7.1 Blu-ray discs, and video games. Dolby Pro Logic IIz processes low-level, uncorrelated information--such as ambience and some amorphous effects like rain or wind--and directs it to the front height speakers."

Nice idea, did it actually work? … Read more