Remember when I wrote about FruitfulTime TaskManager? Their software is amazing and has only made my hectic life a lot easier. Remembering tasks is a pretty hard job and we might end up forgetting some important things and the consequences could be drastic. The best way to remember and manage tasks is to have a to-do list. However, just when I thought TaskManager got the job done, I was introduced to NoteKeeper 2. FruitfulTime Notekeeper 2 is just as easy and great to use as TaskManager, however, Notekeeper 2 is a professional and comprehensive note taking software. FruitfulTime NoteKeeper 2 helps you to keep your notes and references all in one place. Easy to find, read, and update.

I’m a blogger, so this software has proven to be very useful. Once installed, I was writing notes in no time and saving them to work on later, or archives posts that I have already worked on. You can include, pictures and links, so it was even easier to to references to later. But NoteKeeper 2 isn’t just for bloggers. If you have been thinking about turning that journal of yours digital, then you can. If you are a student and would like to keep your research within NoteKeeper 2, you can easily do so. Professionals, students, bloggers, etc. can all benifit from this amazing software. Fortunately, FruitfulTime NoteKeeper 2 includes the same secure privacy features that TaskManager did so if you are worried about sneaky eyes, then not to worry – you can lock up your most sacred secrets.

FruitfulTime NoteKeeper 2 also helps in the following:

• Supporting documents, such as spreadsheets, can be referenced and opened with one click.
• Access your notes anytime and anywhere when you install on a USB thumb drive.
• Work offline with no internet connection.
• No need to worry where you saved your notes file
• Keep your notes organized in one place and never lose anything.
• Assign keywords and color tags to notes for quick reference.
• Style your notes with fonts, colors, and pictures.

And that is just to name a few. Being that it is FruitfulTime, they pack many features for a reasonable cost. I have been working with FruitfulTime NoteKeeper 2 for a good week now, and I absolutely love it. The only problem I have is that it isn’t yet available for Mac. Perhaps in the future, this will change, so until then, I will continue using NoteKeeper 2 on my Windows machine.

If you are interested in trying out FruitfulTime NoteKeeper 2 for yourself, then I suggest you do so. You have 30 days to play with it, and after 30 days, $30 ($29.99) will be asked of you. If you don’t like it, they guarantee 30 day money back.

FruitfulTime NoteKeeper 2 is available now for Microsoft Windows Vista/XP/2000.

I got a chance to use a great piece of software. Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a complete solution that helps you to search, locate and recover your lost, missing, inaccessible or deleted data. It is pretty cool in the fact that what you thought you might have deleted is actually not deleted at all. Quite simply, it is a stellar addition to any computer.

Unfortunately, “Windows Data Recovery” means that the software is just for Windows machines, so Mac users should look elsewhere. Not only does the software cover Windows machines only, but also covers all operating systems. Stellar Phoenix covers FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 file system. It also allows you to recover the data from compressed NTFS drives or individually compressed files.

Stellar Phoenix is powered by an engine which helps scanning the drive three times faster. Standard search is very fast and efficient in normal cases. If you are not able to get the desired results, it also offers advanced search. The method has greater chance to discover lost data. It scans each cluster of the logical drive and also scans the entire unused cluster for known file types. In case of formatted drive, previous file system can be selected for scanning.

What I like most about Stellar Phoenix is the support to “Recover more than 300 file types in case of severe file system corruption.” This means the program will have signatures of almost 300 file types. You can also add, edit and remove signatures that are added. The program also has the capability to determine file size of some of the file types. With this feature, you can recover different file types including MS-Office, Web, Images, Movie, Digital Camera, and Application files.

Lost any of your RAW camera format files? No need to worry. Stellar Phoenix has that covered also. The RAW Recovery option provides enhanced photo recovery and supports all major camera format file types such as NEF, CRW, CR2, ORF, SR2, K25, KDC, DCR, RAF, MRW, PEF, and X3F. If you are like me, some of these file names just don’t make since, but thankfully there is a preview mode. You will see that many files will have strange names while you are trying to recover them and you will not come to know what exactly that file was because it does not have that familiar name.

Of course, I had to test out the software, rather than assume it does its job, so I did a simple test and deleted a bunch of items in my recycling bin. Phoenix did a stellar job at recovering everything. Then I moved to an adventure that is a little more dangerous. Ooops. I accidently deleted one of my hard drive. This time around, I ran the scan in RAW mode, an option that scans each and every sector of the drive for files. This can take quite a long time. My 160GB hard drive took well over 4 hours to be fully scanned.

Afterwards, I was pleasantly surprised that most of my files were back. Not all of them, but luckily I had duplicates of everything before doing my tests. Perhaps something you may not have known is the fact that in Vista, a full format actually gets rid of everything by writing zeros to every sector of the disk, and no recovery software can deal with this – nope, not even Phoenix Stellar. Partitions formatted under Windows XP can, for the most part, be recovered.

When disaster strikes and your hard drives crashes, what do you do? Well, if you don’t have one of the many services that allow backup online, then you can’t do much. Regardless, you can never be too safe. Phoenix Stellar is good at what it does. However, I must admit, it was my first time using such software so I was, of course, pleased with results. The software is a little confusing at times, and I simply did not know what to do, or what many things meant. If you find yourself running into trouble however, customer support is free and 24-7. They are kind and very helpful. The user interface is not a site to behold; however, it is clear that their focus was not so much on looks, but functionality and for that, they are stellar.

The software is $99 after you have used your demo, and can be downloaded here.

As the battle continues against the ultimate online backup solutions, HP has stepped forth with its service called HP Upline. It is a decent backup product at a good price point, but it has a few frustrating limitations.

The software is simple to get started with and the paid plans provide unlimited storage for your documents, photos, music, and video files. The system checks for new files by default every 15 minutes, and uploads your data to the HP servers in a quiet background process. There is a free version that gives you 1GB of online storage for a year, but if you are serious about backup (like me); you will want one of the paid versions. The least expensive “Home plan” ($59.00/year) gives you the unlimited storage and allows up to three PCs. Family plans and small office plans give you individual storage bins, and the business plans also give you an administrator’s dashboard.

Something I really like is that the product allows for web-based access to your backed-up files, which is very useful if you want a file and not by your computer. You can also share files via e-mail or the publish files for public access. Upline can also back up files to a local device, such as a second hard drive, a server, or a PC on the local network. This is a cool feature and I do not think there is a service out that that does both, local and remote storage options, but I could be wrong.

Now there are some cons to this service. Firstly, if you want to back up your emails, you will not be able to. Not yet, anyway. Secondly, this service is focusing on backing up only and not restoring your system, so if you happen to crash your hard drive, you cannot use Upline to restore the system. Although I think this is a feature that is likely to come in the future. Thirdly, the application does not offer PC-to-PC sync. I feel this is a very important feature, and I would suggest looking at a few of my favorites, FolderShare, BeInSync, and SugarSync.

Lastly, HP Upline is not compatible with Mac. I think it is important to offer for both platforms, especially today, since there seems to be a mixed variety of Mac and PC users. Regardless, HP Upline is a great, promising service and in the onward battle of backup solutions, it is also important to keep a nice price point and at $59/year for unlimited backup, I think they have secured themselves in the battle.

Choosing software to make our lives easier is getting much more complex. Doesn’t make much since, right? Microsoft has always assured us in having an amazing easy suite of applications; Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, etc. All of a sudden, suites start popping up online everywhere. Internet search-giant Google has come to market with a reliable and low cost suite of web-based tools: word processing, spreadsheets, calendar, e-mail, and more, all packaged as Google Apps. There are then the rest of the gang following behind such as Zoho, ThinkFree, and Corel’s new WordPerfect Lightning; not to mention the handful of open-source applications such as OpenOffice and StarOffice. All of these feature the ability to do word processing, spreadsheets, and more. However, which do you choose? What will give you the most for your money or is less really more?

There are pros and cons to each service, but for the money and feature set, I would choose between Google Apps and Office 2007. Basic versions of Google Apps are free and feature-packed, if you don’t mind limited storage capability and customer support. If you want more, there is always the premium option with most service like these. Premium packages cost all of $50 a year.

“Johnson says SF Bay spends about $1,200 a year for Google Apps Premier, a fraction of the roughly $10,000 it would have cost to install software from Microsoft. He says he looked at other Web-based software, but decided Google’s size and reputation makes it the safest bet.”

Google stresses ease of use and downfalls of not using their services: “Sign up and you will never have to face another Microsoft upgrade or crash…” A feature that I like is the ability to access your stuff from any computer with an Internet connection. There are no downloads, backups, or new hardware to deal with.

I have used Google Apps before and love it. It is simple and easy to use. However, being a frequent Office user (Year 2000 and beyond) I have learned and grown accustom to certain keystrokes, tips, tricks, and just so much more comfortable with Office. In addition, if you are not online, Google Apps cannot be used. For a while, I have heard rumors that they are coming out with a desktop application to fix this, but I have yet to see anything yet. Editing Office documents in Google Apps is strictly a cut-and-paste affair. I am not a worrier like some, but I am somewhat concerned with the security. Although stated to be “secure,” I fear anyone is able to read and mess with my documents.

Office is cool, especially Office 2007. I have been using Office since I was in middle school and until this day, find it to be my main application suite. When I purchase a new computer, I also get Office. Office is also available for Mac also, so my Mac is equipped with the Office suite as well. If you gather up your money for the full version of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and run it on a new PC or Mac with at least two gigs of memory and a 1.8 GHz processor, you will be rewarded with an array of features. The really neat thing I love about Office is the ability to integrate with other software on my system. My calendar information can be incorporated into emails (and vice versa) and I can blog on Word and place some statistics from Excel and send over a fax to Tom. There is just a variety of cool things you can do with Office. Just like Google Apps, there are some cons: It can be hard to find why Office’s extensive feature set is the way it is. In Outlook, your “contacts” are different from your “business contacts.” Outlook “lists” sometimes flow into Business Contact Manager, which is annoying. Microsoft does not support Adobe formats such as PDF and Acrobat. In addition, Office is rather pricey, sometimes costing well over $500! They are little things that cause the biggest frustrations sometimes.

So which one? Which will benefit you mostly? I enjoy using both. Each has something I like more or less, but to put it in a different perspective, if money is not an issue and you need to turn out dazzling presentations and spreadsheets, go with Office 2007. If group effort is important to your business and you don’t need to produce slick documents or do complex financial analysis, try the far less expensive Google Apps.

For some, it is a little easier to make that decision due to the popularity of the products. Not many people have heard much of the “Office” alternatives, so Office is first choice. But when these other applications suites start getting bigger and better – and they will – it’ll be a little harder to choose. If Google plans on being the next Office and something worth choosing over Office in most cases, it is clear that they are going to have to woo the millions of Office user out there. With Google’s strong software development team and their dedication, it will not be too long before the decision between the two giants become crystal clear, only reiterating less is actually more.

If 2007 was the year of “face recognition,” software, 2008 is set to go one further with “Smile recognition.”

Yes, you’ve guessed it, the clever guys at Sony, are coming out with a range of cybershot cameras with built-in smile recognition.

As I understand it, the new cybershot cameras – the T200, T70 and T2 come with software that can be programmed to recognize a smile on a particular face and take the shot when the person smiles – so no more miserable-looking babies.

This is the DSC-T2 – 8.1 megapixels.

Touch screen technology means no more buttons and switches on the back of the camera.

The software allows you to select “smile shutter.”

There are several levels of recognition.

The face is programmed in to the software and if the subject is wearing a hat and glasses, adjusts itself accordingly. (Can you tell I got this from a Japanese press release?)

Et Voila ! Only smiling, happy babies.