Have you ever been at work and realized you forgot a file that you need for that presentation on your computer at home?  How about on vacation and remembered that you didn’t submit that file that needed to be in before a deadline that will pass before you get back?  What if you’re trying to convince your boss to let you telecommute once or twice a week but you don’t know how you’ll access your files while you’re gone?  There’s easy to use, free software out there to help you with these scenarios and more.

The best solution I’ve found is LogMeIn.

LogMeIn is most basically a remote desktop platform.  What sets it apart from older applications such as VNC is that you don’t need to make any changes to your firewall or forward any ports, LogMeIn takes care of it all for you.

Their free version is excellent and does everything most people need in a remote desktop application.

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One thing that drives me nuts about mobile computing is when I don’t notice my battery is running low until my computer is forcing itself into hibernation.  Sometimes having a little battery icon next to the system clock isn’t enough, for those times BattCursor is a lifesaver.

BattCursor uses Windows Aero Glass (the component built into windows that makes the boarder around applications in Vista/7 transparent) and your cursor as a visual reference for your battery life.  You can set the colors for full charge, half charge and low battery, use your mouse as a visual guide to battery life and even have BattCursor control your power profiles and change your CPU or backlight brightness depending on battery status.

Check it out at BattCursor.net [via downloadsquad]

Sometimes MSpaint just won’t cut it, but you can’t justify spending the money for Photoshop. What are your other options?  Take a look at Splashup, a free web based image editor with many of the most commonly used tools for tweaking images for the casual user.

The left side toolbar has crop, rotation, marquee, type, erase, and many shape tools, just like a real image editor! You can choose foreground and background colors and it preserves multiple undo/redo states.

Across the top menu bar there’s (of course) “File” with such favorites as “open”, “save”, “close”, etc. “Image” let’s you set the image and canvas sizes, “Layer” and “Selection” let you manipulate the layers and your current selection respectively.  Filter (see below) let’s you use some of the most often used Photoshop-like filters and control such elements as contrast, color, and hue.  Finally “View” let’s you go from windowed mode into fullscreen and manage your zoom level. continue

Need to create PDFs on your computer but don’t want to pay $300+ for Acrobat Professional?  Don’t want to install a 1GB+ software suite just for some simple functionality?  Take a look at CutePDF.

CutePDF is a small (1.5 MB) download, installs quickly and stays out of your way.  If you want to create a PDF simply select File, Print in whatever program you’re using and choose the “CutePDF” printer. That’s it!

The free version doesn’t have the advanced features such as creating interactive forms, digital signing of documents, etc., stuff that most people don’t ever use anyway.  If you do need those features they have a Professional version that is only $49.95, about $250 less than Adobe’s!

Download it today from http://www.cutepdf.com/

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Are you backed up?

This is a question that we ask and far too often the answer is “no”. There’s really no reason not to be backing up all your important information using automated software. Whether you rely on DVDs, USB thumb drives, external hard drives or online storage there are a multitude of choices to keep all your files safe.  Today we’re looking at a couple different choices for online storage.

Free, totally free!

http://mozy.com (PC and Mac 2GB storage free, $4.95/mo per computer for unlimited storage.)

Although 2GB isn’t very much space these days, you’ll be able to get all your important word docs, excel sheets and a handful of photos protected for free.  They have free software that automates the process of backing up so you don’t have to think about it once it’s set up.  After you max out the 2GB of free storage their $4.95/mo for unlimited space is a great deal.

http://www.getdropbox.com (PC and Mac 2GB storage free, 50GB for $9.99/mo) continue