Utilities - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

  • Five ways to keep your student's digital life safe

    As students return to school, technology goes with them. That technology--and the data generated by it--is valuable not simply as a means for getting school work done, but also as entertainment for those brief hours between one assignment and the next. It's for this reason that it pays to plan for disaster. With a single massive power burst, storage media that suddenly heads south, or interaction with a light-fingered ne'er-do-well, the technology your student depends on can vanish. Take these five tips to heart, however, and the loss of a device or data need not be catastrophic.

    Christopher Breen | 20 Aug | Read more

  • iCloud vs. iTunes backups: The crucial differences that affect your data

    Once upon a time one of the primary handicaps of iOS devices was the fact that you had to physically connect it to a Windows or Mac PC with a USB sync cable to back it up using iTunes. With iOS 5 Apple introduced iCloud, essentially allowing users to cut the cord. But these iOS backup methods were not created equal, and if you don't choose carefully you could be risking significant data loss. To ensure your iPhone or iPad data is fully protected, here's a look at what each option backs up and when to use it.

    Tony Bradley | 15 May | Read more

  • Essential free software you can't afford to miss

    Free doesn't have to mean cheesy, especially when it comes to freeware. A developer's passion project can become something you can't imagine being without, and the fact that you don't have to lay out any cash to acquire it is a major bonus. Some developers accept donations to further development, so consider giving what you can if you find value in their efforts.

    Alex Cocilova | 07 Oct | Read more

  • AgileBits teases significant revamp of 1Password for OS X

    While Apple's announcement of the forthcoming iCloud Keychain feature of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks might have seemed like dire news for products like AgileBits's 1Password, the latter company's not about to throw in the towel. On Friday, it teased a sneak peek at the forthcoming 1Password 4 for Mac, a complete redesign and re-engineering of what represents the first major update to the password manager on OS X since 2009.

    Dan Moren | 23 Aug | Read more

  • 12 Must-Do PC Tasks

    Computers may have become a lot more user-friendly over the past decade, but they're still far from perfect--PCs require a certain amount of configuration and maintenance to operate at their full potential. Unfortunately, because we humans are also far from perfect, we frequently don't put in the work we should, and we end up with a slower, sloppier, less secure machine as a result.

    Alex Castle | 05 Apr | Read more

  • Mac Gems: Little Snitch snitches on misbehaving apps

    Our Macs can be chatty even when we wish they weren't. Apps, and even the OS itself, regularly reach out to the rest of your local network and to the Internet to probe, query, and blab. Little Snitch 3 intercepts these requests and presents them to you for inspection and approval. The latest update to the software adds inbound-connection management, too. Little Snitch has graduated from being a sort of outbound-only firewall with notifications to being a full-fledged firewall product with a friendly interface that informs you about any network-related activities.

    Glenn Fleishman | 27 Nov | Read more

  • No nyms equals evil

    Two weeks ago <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2011/080811-backspin.html">I contended</a> that "Freedom and privacy, in any meaningful sense, are dead" and discussed the two types of privacy, "factual" privacy, which concerns "static" data such as your age and cholesterol level, and "lifestream" privacy which is the realtime data about things such as where you go and who you talk to.

    Mark Gibbs | 22 Aug | Read more

  • Seagate offers data recovery with hard drive purchase

    Hard drive crashes are a nightmare for computer users for many reasons. Not only can data held dear to one's heart be lost, but trying to recover it can cost an arm and a leg, if not more. Hard drive maker Seagate attempts to address both those problems with the release today of its GoFlex Turbo drive with SafetyNet data recovery services.

    John P. Mello Jr. | 09 Aug | Read more

  • OPINION: Freedom and privacy, R.I.P.

    Freedom and privacy, in any meaningful sense, are dead. I know, I know ... I've written about this topic before but that was in the context of our "factual" privacy, which is about access to what you might think of as "static" data about you. Now we have to recognize the death of our "realtime" or "lifestream" privacy: the freedom to go about our business unobserved and anonymously.

    Mark Gibbs | 08 Aug | Read more

  • LastPass: The Last Word in Password Management

    Remembering all of your passwords may not seem difficult...until you think about just how many passwords you have. One for each email account. One for each bank account. One for each shopping site. The list goes on, and on. If you want to make your life simple, you can choose the same password for every account. But if you want to keep things secure while making life simple, you need a password manager like LastPass. This free software comes in a <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,77152/description.html">32-bit</a> and a <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,169129/description.html">64-bit version</a>.

    Liane Cassavoy | 31 Jul | Read more

  • Still Smart, Still Free: KeePass Keeps Your Passwords Safe

    KeePass solves an increasingly important dilemma: How to <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/221505/the_wrong_way_to_manage_your_passwords.html">keep track</a> of all of your passwords, whether they be for email services, Web sites, bank accounts, or what have you. Increasingly, we are inundated with passwords, with no easy way to keep track of them. The free <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,157063/description.html">KeePass</a> does the job neatly.

    Preston Gralla | 25 Jul | Read more