Welcome to the start of the 16th year of "Double Click." Thanks so much for reading the hundreds of articles that I have spun up over this time. Thanks also for the emails I continue to receive regarding every one. It is very much appreciated so keep them coming.
This January (as every year) I will be reviewing the sites I wrote about during the previous year. If the site addresses are too long for print I have shortened them using the "bit.ly" app. The links will be preceded by "rd.dblclx.com" followed by various letters and numbers. Copy them, then paste them in your browser’s address bar to visit the sites. If you visit DoubleClicks.info you can click the links and go directly to the sites.
So, here they are in their order of appearance with short descriptions of each.
- Instance Mail, InstanceMail.com – a place to get a temporary email address, use once and toss it.
- GO Contact Sync Mod, googlesyncmod.sourceforge.net – the best Google/Outlook Calendar syncing program I can find since the demise of the original Google app.
- Dropbox, rd.dblclx.com/use-Dropbox – yes, that same old name I talk about every year. But if you want to store files online (the Cloud) this is my recommendation.
- Preventing Windows 10 Updates, rd.dblclx.com/1XpVqHN – MS changes their pages often, this is now for preventing driver updates but was originally for stopping W10 from updating.
- Google Maps, maps.google.com – the name says it all for this great map app.
- Waze, waze.com – the name does not say it all for this one but in my opinion, it is an even better map application than Google Maps; even though they are both owned by Google.
- Two apps that disappeared in 2016, Google’s Picasa photo editor/viewer and Copy.com a competitor to Dropbox, both are greatly missed.
- VideoLAN, videolan.org – the best free video player application out there. I recommend it over the built-in video viewer in Windows 10.
- What if you do not upgrade, rd.dblclx.com/stopW10 – one of the guesses made as to what would happen if you did not take the Windows 10 free upgrade? In reality nothing much, you can still get it but you will not be continually bothered by pop ups nagging you to do so.
- Startup Delayer, rd.dblclx.com/startupdelayer – you can use this app to delay apps which start in the background when you power up your computer. It could make it boot much more quickly.
- KeePass, keepass.info and LastPass, lastpass.com – These are both good password keepers or vaults. I use Keepass for my main password vault; however, LastPass seems an easier choice for many and has many extra features.
- Avast!, avast.com – one of my past favorite free (and paid version also) antivirus applications.
- Avast Clear, rd.dblclx.com/avastuninstaller – this is a link to software you may need if you try to totally uninstall Avast from your computer. Sometimes any of the antivirus apps can be hard to uninstall.
- Audible, audible.com and Podiobooks, podiobooks.com – these are two audiobook sites for those of you who may have a longer trip to work than most, or are traveling on a trip. They give you the opportunity to listen to a book. Audible, not for free, has the most recent titles out. Podiobooks has authors who have not yet been discovered so you may find a great unheard of author.
See you next week for the last half of 2016 in review.
