FTP clients are a great tool for people who spend a lot of time uploading and downloading files from websites or online storage space, but they can be complicated to use if you are not familiar with them. There is an easier way to access this storage space.

Netdrive is a utility that will allow you to show this storage space as a mapped network drive on your computer. This means that you can drag and drop straight into it using the standard Windows File Explorer, bypassing the need for any fancy FTP programs.

Netdrive sits in the system tray, but should only need to be accessed if you would like to add a new site, or change settings.

NetDrive is easy to setup. Once it is installed, create a new site and add in your FTP server settings. You may want to enable load on startup as that will make Netdrive very hands-off in the future. Once the machine is on the storage space will be mapped automatically.

You can then proceed copying and pasting to and from it just like you would with any of your other files or folders.

I have recommended this to a couple of friends, and they have experienced their internet occasionally dropping out while this software is running in the background. Because of this, you may want to load up Netdrive as you require it, rather than loading it at startup.

NetDrive is available from Netdrive.net and is free for home use. Novell also offers a program called Netdrive that does exactly the same thing, with a few less bells and whistles. This is available from Peter’s Useful Crap.

Skyfire works differently to other mobile browsers in that it shows you the full web site and not the mobile version. It appears to me that Skyfires servers render the page before delivering it. This results in Flash, Silverlight and Ajax content working properly on a Windows mobile device. It has been a long wait.

With Skyfire servers doing a lot of work, I expected pages to download much slower, however I did not find this to be the case. This was especially surprising seeing that I am not in one of the supported or optimized countries. I was even able to watch Youtube videos at a reasonable quality.

Skyfire shows the full page which you can scroll around, or zoom in on text you want to read. I was very impressed that it automatically zoomed in on a text input box when I tapped it. It is very user friendly.

Skyfire probably won’t solve all of your mobile surfing problems, but it will let you view most of the sites that have not been viewable before. My recommendation is to use this side by side with Internet Explorer mobile, depending on the site you want to visit. Saying that, this is still a beta version. There may be bigger plans for the full release. Hopefully the plans aren’t to charge for the product.

I look forward to seeing how Firefox mobile evolves over time. It is looking quite promising. It may be the answer to many of my surfing problems.

Skyfire isn’t supported by all Windows Mobile devices at this stage, but it worked fine on my HTC touch. Supported device information, and much more is available on their website. Grab your copy of Skyfire from Skyfire.com.

For many years I have been using Partition Magic as it was the only program that I could find that would resize partitions without losing data. This feature is very important when adding a partition to a computer that is running well. It could save you from needing to resinstall the whole system. Partition Magic is a commercial program which is hard to justify a purchase of, as you may only use it once or twice each year.

EaseUs Partition Manager Home Edition has been labelled a “free replacement for Partition Magic”, and rightly so. The interface is very similar to the popular Partition Magic, and it contains many of the same features.

Features include:

• Disk resizing without data loss
• Disk and partition copying
• Setting partitions active or hidden
• Disk Labeling
• Easy to use interface
• Everything else most people could ever want

This tool is a long saught after tool for those who do a lot of partitioning. Now the job of trying out Linux, or installing XP on a factory installed Vista machine is a lot less daunting, and dare I say it – even enjoyable.

Important Update: Ensure you turn off hibernation and sleep modes before running this program. If it enters these modes while the program is running, you may find your computer is unbootable. Most other tools of this nature run in DOS mode where sleep or hibernate is not a feature, hence not a problem.

Partition Manager has a commercial version available for people who would like a few extra features, but the home version is free and does everything reported in this article. Grab your copy from Partition-Tool.

There are normally a number of features in the power management component of the BIOS options, which permit all types of triggers to wake a computer up from hibernation or standby modes. However, if the computer is turned off, these will not work.

One of the triggers allows us to set the computer to launch via the real time clock. We can set how frequently the machine will wake up, or what time of the day we want it too wake up.

Every BIOS is a little different so it is impossible to give specific instructions, but it is not too hard to find. Go into the BIOS and find Power Management. In here, ensure S3 is enabled. There should be an option called “Resume by alarm”, or “Wake-up on RTC”. Once this is enabled, you will be able to set the time you want your computer to turn on. That should be all there is to it.

While I had not seen this feature before, I checked the 3 computers I have access to, to see if they also had this option. These machines are of various ages and they all included this feature. Only one time can be set in the BIOS, so using this method will not work if you want it to turn on in the morning and the afternoon. If you want to do this, you will need to use the task scheduler.

There are a number of Magic Packet senders that will wake a computer up over a LAN connection, but these are usually stand alone programs that need to be opened up and have data entered into them before they work. I wanted a more customizable solution.

Mc-wol is a command line utility that enables you to wake up a machine on your local area network. Being a command line utility, it is easy to utilize in a shortcut on your desktop, place into a batch file, or use it in a scheduled task.

Don’t let the command line scare you. The syntax is really simple. To launch a computer, type mc-wol followed by the mac/ethernet address. i.e.:

mc-wol 91:34:eb:de:45:32

Wake on LAN software only works on computers which are in standby or hibernate modes.

Mc-wol is free and available from Matcode.com. You will also find a bunch of useful information on the page about simple settings you will need to check before WOL will work.

BCDedit is configured through the command line. I played around with it for around 5 minutes before deciding that it was too complicated for me with a Christmas hangover. I knew that if I made an error, I may make my machine unbootable. There had to be an easier way.

I came across a utility called EasyBCD. EasyBCD let me change all the settings of my boot menu in a matter of minutes. I was able to add a Windows partition to the boot list, rename the operating systems as they are shown in the menu, and change the wait time.

EasyBCD made this job completely simple. The interface doesn’t allow for much user error as it fills in many of the blanks. EasyBCD can even help you add non Windows operating systems into the mix.

If anything does go wrong with the changes you make, and you find your machine unbootable, put your Vista disk in your computer and boot to it. A quick repair job will bring back the default boot menu.

Grab your free copy from NeoSmart.net.

Windows Mobile already has remote desktop and VNC options, but Remote Touch offers some benefits over these. Remote Touch is quick, the screen will not shrink to an unusable size, and you can zoom in on the part of the screen you are interested in.

Another handy feature is that the computer screen doesn’t get locked. This allows the computer to remain active after you have disconnected, or you can use the software as a remote control.

Remote Touch works over IP, so after a little bit of port forwarding, your remote desktop is accessible from anywhere with a wireless network connection. There is a client which is installed on the device, and a tiny server that runs on the desktop.

Remote touch is still in Beta so you may come across the occasional bug. On the bright side, you can also expect improvements in stability and features over the coming months. It worked fine for me on my HTC Touch.

For a detailed video on Remote Touch, and the download, visit the authors website.

Universal remotes are great devices which simplify the control of home entertainment devices. They cut down the pile of remotes to one single remote, removing the need to use multiple remotes to do a simple task like watching TV. This also clears up space on the coffee table so that it can be used for better stuff like.. umm coffee.

While making life easier for the person who set up the remote, other family members or friends may become confused by it. All it takes when pressing the remote buttons is for a cat to walk by, or a coffee table in the way of the infra red signal to go walkabouts. There could also be configuration problems where the universal remote isn’t completely compatible with a device. This may result in some buttons needing to be inputed manually.

While the remote works correctly most of the time, when something does go wrong, my wife has no idea what buttons to press to get things up and running. Why should she need to know the inner workings of something that I set up? I continually tried to make minor adjustments to the remote configuration, and even rewired the equipment at one stage, to make life a little easier for her. In the end, there was only one solution.

I put together a cheat sheet for my wife so that she can do her own fault finding. The cheat sheet lists what devices need to be on for a certain activity, and what setting each device needs to be on. Using this list, she can look on the front panel of each device and figure out where the problem is. There are also additional notes describing what may go wrong, and how to rectify it.

I tested it out on my wife and the results were much better than anything else I had come up with. Feel free to download it here and alter it, or create your own. It isn’t a complicated document, but I hope it will save my wife from any continued frustration.

JoytoKey is a small program that allows you to setup the movement controls and buttons of a game controller, into emulated keystrokes and mouse movements. You can setup different profiles for different programs and games, as well as separate configurations for different controllers. You can even configure a button on the controller represent a key combination.

This program is useful in the case where games don’t offer any game controller support, or where some newer games don’t offer support for older controllers, especially where drivers haven’t been updated over the years. JoytoKey allows you to split the axis controls into two separate buttons.

For example; if you have a first person shooter game that does not currently support a game controller, you can setup a profile for your controller to work with the game. Each button will represent a key from from your keyboard. Once all the buttons are configured, you have effectively added game controller support for your game.

Read more and download your free copy from electracode.

If you would like to control your mouse cursor only with your controller, check out this article for a simple alternative.

G-Alarm is a reliable alarm clock for Windows Mobile devices. It is packed with features, many of which I have not seen in other alarm clock software.

You can set up unlimited alarms, a snooze function, use a random MP3 file from a playlist as your alarm, and you can even fade in the music so as to not stun you awake. That’s just the beginning.

My favourite feature of G-Alarm is a maze that you need to complete before you are able to disable the alarm. It isn’t all that challenging, but it will be enough to ensure even the heaviest sleeper will wake up properly. All of the features can be turned on or off, making this program ideal for most.

I have had this on my device for a week while I have been testing it out. I am happy to say that G-Alarm has not let me down yet.

G-Alarm has been tested on a bunch of devices from the HTC range, though it should work on other Windows Mobile devices.

Grab your copy from the authors website, AGEye.de.