Friendly Photo to Sketch Software - An User

You like to take pictures, and sometimes, even if the composition is right and the landscape is beautiful, you wouldn't call it very artistic; something lacks and you don't know exactly what. With a little help from a photo editing software, you could transform your photo into art with Akvis Sketch. It can transform without a lot of effort or technical skill from your side to a charcoal sketch or watercolor painting. Is your imagination captured by this short introduction? Then, continue reading.

Of course, you could achieve the same effect using Photoshop, but you would need for that a lot of knowledge and technical skills. Akvis Sketch is a program with an easier to deal user interface and with less options. All its settings are at hand and you'll familiarize with them fast. There are two modes in which you can use the photo to sketch program: the Express mode is for beginners, with most of the options hidden. In order to access them all, you can go to the advanced mode.

When you launch the application, a square of the photo will look like a pencil painting, there are either some default settings or it uses the last photo settings.

Each time you make a change, you can preview it in a square frame. By default, it's located in the center of the image, but you can drag the preview window wherever you want or crop it on any part of the image you need to check. When you're satisfied with the conversion, can can free click on the After tab or on the arrow after the Advanced mode to transform it.

How to Defrag Your Hard Drive (Computer Care)

If you've had your computer for a while and it's starting to act slow and sluggish, chances are that it's time to defragment your hard drive. What happens is that the files become disorganised, literally "fragmented", and that's why they take so long to open. This fragmentation is normal - to a point. Beyond that point, it becomes a real problem, and can slow down even a fast modern computer.

Defragmenting your hard drive is quite easy, and should be done regularly. This is DIY computer support.

The basics. Defragmenting from the beginning:

Windows XP

On your computers start menu:

1. Click on Start > Programs > Accessories

2. Click on System Tools and then on Disk Defragmenter. Windows built-in disk defragmenter program will open.

3. The computer will need to assess the drive before defragmenting. Left click once on the hard disk click Analyse.

4. If appropriate, the dialog box will say "you should defragment this volume". Click Defragment to start the process. If not, you can close and exit the program.

Windows Vista and 7 (You may need an administrator's password)

1. Click on the Start Button > All Programs > Accessories

2. Click on System Tools and then on Disk Defragmenter. The Windows Disk Defragmenter will open.

3. Select the disk you want to defrag (typically this will be C drive)

4. Click Analyze Disk to check the amount of fragmentation on the disk

5. Click Defragment Disk to start defragmenting

Defragmenting isn't necessarily quick. On average, it takes between 30 minutes and an hour. (If you've had the computer for a few years, and have never defragmented before, it may take a little longer.)

Coolest Windows Mobile Apps You Must Have!

In a generation where the iPhone has taken over majority of the market there is a good 15% of the population who use windows mobile. The windows platform is enormous and there are millions of users with windows mobiles. Apps are usually meant to make your day-to-day work easy, so here are a few and one of the best mobile apps windows user should have to make their life simpler. They have apps for everything and you can even install the trial version before buying the real application.

Skyfire:

One of the best browsers that is available in the market, that makes your browsing experience fast and one of the very few browsers that support Flash 10, Silverlight and Windows Media videos. With these features a user can stream videos in YouTube, Hulu, and many other online video streaming sites. It has pretty amazing features like, it supports Javascripts and Ajax. With Skyfire you can, not only follow twitter updates but also give Facebook updates and view your RSS feed content.

Skype 3.0 for Windows Phones:

Almost all users are aware about Skype and its features, so long story cut short, you can make free Skype-to-Skype calls and free messaging with your friends and family. A user can send photos, music and many such files to other Skype users for free. You can also have conference calls as well as free mobile transfer. Installing Skype in you mobile will give almost all the features that you can avail in your laptop.

AIM for Windows Mobile:

AIM, includes almost all the features available on your PC to your Windows Mobile Smartphone now. This is one of those mobile apps that allow a user to communicate in whichever way the user wants and that which suits him the best. It provides the same features that are available in the computer of an AIM user. You can view updates as well as provide updates to AIM users as well as people using other networking sites like Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and many others.