What’s new on the Web…

Google Mail is a popular platform for handling your email as it not only enables you to read, write and access your email from any host PC, you can also arrange for it to access your regular POP3 email and collate within one interface. Indeed, Sky have recently teamed up with Google to use the Gmail system for Sky users. However, what happens when you can’t open your web browser and keep logging on to the system to check for new email?

Google Notifier 0.6.3.10 is an add-on for Firefox that sits in the bottom of your web browser and informs you when you have new email. It’s subtle, too. When you have new unread email in your Google Mail account, it simply changes the red envelope to blue. You can then login through your web browser.

If you’re a Mac OS X user, however, you may want to check the fantastic Mailplane which brings Google Mail to a standalone email client. Windows version is in discussion.

Gmail Notifier and Mailplane link.

If you’re an experienced PC user, you would probably see yourself as being reasonably computer literate, but there are certain areas that may be beyond your capabilities. Manually tweaking your operating system by editing your Registry is an area that should be treated with caution as, without the correct skills it’s all too easy to create unwanted and problematic Registry entries. One solution would be to use a tried and tested optimisation tool, although they have a more general approach to optimisation, they are far safer to use, especially for less experienced users.

Fresh UI 8.20 is a free Windows optimisation tool that can be used to configure your operating system with very little risk. There’s no need for any Registry editing which means you can tweak and configure your PC without fear of interfering or potentially damaging key areas of your operating system.

Fresh UI 8.20 link.

It’s always wise to have the latest drivers installed on your PC. Apart from compatibility issues, your PC will always get the most from your hardware with the latest drivers. Problem is that Windows installs a lot of safe vanilla drivers on your computer to make sure your system just works, once you’ve installed the operating system. First thing you’ll want to do is find and download the latest drivers. Problem is, if you suffer from a system-related crash and need to re-install Windows, you will have to find and download all the drivers again.

DriverBackup 2.0 is a tool that you can use to examine your system, check for the drivers you have installed, then backup them all up to a remote location, CD or other removable device. If you have problems in the future, you can simply restore the drivers in one go, back on to your PC.

DriverBackup 2 link.

We spent months waiting for Opera 9.5 and we were guilty of releasing every single weekly beta on vnunet.com. After a few months, this became a quest. However, we were amazed to hear that Opera are now working on v10 and that’s hit the first alpha. If that’s anything like 9.x, the release will be months off. Still, if you like to be on the cutting edge of web browser development, then you’ll want to follow the development of Opera 10. Already it’s shaping up to be a compelling browser. We tried the Mac OS X version and it was very stable.

Opera 10 alpha 1 is built on the forthcoming Preso 2.2 rendering engine which has acheived an amazing 100/100 from the Acid 3 test. Unheard of. Most web browsers are lucky to pass the test and never reach a 100% score. Opera 10 will have an auto-update feature so you always have the latest version on your computer, an inline spell checker so your forms will be checked as you type and much more.

Opera 10 alpha 1 link.

Only recently we gave you the full commercial 6-month edition of Iolo System Mechanic 8. Our most recent full commercial app is TuneUp Utilities 2007, which is proving to be one of the most popular full commercial downloads so far. Both are very similar tools and both are recommended. Both are system tweaking, tuning and maintenance tools that will enable you to get the most from your computer. You can use them to clear trash, tweak your Registry, defrag your drive as well as search for potential system issues.

System Mechanic 8.5 is now available and this is a minor update for Vista 64-bit users. It means you can now tweak, tune and optimise your 64-bit operating system. Believe it or not, there are few tweaking tools designed to get the most from the 64-bit architecture.

System Mechanic 8.5 and TuneUp Utilities 2007 links.