There are plenty of times where we would like to sync our iPhones or iPods with mutliple computers but were unable to do so fearing the loss of our precious music. Even though Apple doesn’t provide a solution to this issue, there are non-trivial solutions out there to get this done. But, if you’re not comfortable hacking, PhoneAble allows you to easily grab data from two computers. Just sync your iPhone with your main machine, install the app on your other computers, and run through the steps it provides. It will set your library key on each computer to match the one on your iPhone, thus allowing you to sync whatever data you want.

PhoneAble is a free download for 32-bit versions of Windows only.

PhoneAble

When you upload files to Google Docs, you’ll notice a new option that tells Google to convert the text from PDF and image files to Google Docs documents. The feature has been released last year as an experiment, so Google had enough time to improve the accuracy of the results.

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Mad Catz and Squier’s are introducing a new Rock band 3 Stratocaster Pro guitar controller that, well, allows you to simultaneously play Rock Band 3 on Pro Expert and rock the same tune through an amplifier. Sounds good huh. Click below for details.

Courtesy of Engadget

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New: YouTube has rolled out a new online video editor for all users of the service. This new online service allows you to trim and paste together uploaded videos from the YouTube website and generate new online videos. They also offer free audio tracks if you need a soundtrack for your new video.

To use the tool is pretty straightforward. Select a video from your online YouTube library, trim it, then drag it into video timeline. For any audio, you can drag and drop the free tracks YouTube offers from their AudioSwap library, and trim and length these clips as well. Very easy tool to generate mashup videos in no time.

Courtesy of lifehacker.com

Windows: Windows 7 install discs are edition-specific—if you’ve got a valid license key, you still need the right disc for installation. The ei.cfg Removal Utility, however, lets you create a new, universal installation ISO for Windows 7.

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Mike Halsey just came up with an ingenious way to add system icons like the Control Panel, Recycle Bin, Devices and Printers, and more to the new Windows 7 taskbar, all while keeping them separate from the other icons already docked there.

Mike’s hack builds off of the WinVistaClub forum tip about how to add the quick launch toolbar back into Windows 7 . The end results of the hack look like this (click for image).

Here’s how you do it Click Here

courtesy of lifehacker.com

Windows only: The Sumatra PDF Viewer is a tiny, open-source, portable, and, most of all, lightning-quick replacement for the bloated Adobe Reader we’ve all learned to replace. It’s only a 1.2 MB download, so why not give it a try?

Sumatra opened every PDF we threw at it without any issues, along with a table of contents in the left pane if available. You can head into the Options to choose the default layout and zoom, or choose whether to have the sidebar display automatically. Want to copy text to the clipboard? Just hold down the Ctrl key and select the text with your mouse, then use Ctrl+C to copy it. There’s even a full set of hotkeys, including Gmail-style navigation. It’s not as full-featured as Reader or Foxit, but if all you are doing is reading PDFs, it’s definitely worth a look.

With giant hard drives and dirt-cheap memory these days, perhaps the biggest reason to switch to an alternative to Adobe Reader isn’t even the bloat anymore—it’s the non-stop security holes that seem to plague the popular reader, leaving you vulnerable to drive-by attacks. If Sumatra isn’t for you, at least check out one of the other five best PDF readers.

Sumatra is a free download for Windows only. If you plan to keep Adobe Reader installed, be sure to check out the manual for instructions on using Sumatra as your default viewer when reading PDFs from the web.

courtesy of lifehacker.com

Windows only: If you’ve ever wanted to keep a program safe from prying eyes but don’t want to close it, free utility LockThis! will let you easily protect any open program, so that un-minimizing it requires a password.

LockThis! is extremely easy to use—to lock an application, all you need to do is press Ctrl while minimizing the window that you want protected. It will ask you for your admin password (which by default is LockThis! but can be changed from the admin window), and then keep the window minimized until you want it open again.

You can use your admin password for all protected programs, set a separate password for all programs, or specify the password on a per-program basis as you minimize them. It’s up to you. It runs in the system tray, staying out of your way except to prompt for passwords—even if you try to open the admin window or exit LockThis!, it will prompt you for your admin password so no one can just shut it off.

LockThis! is a free download, Windows only.

Twitter: As I’m not really a twitter addict, I chose to make this application my first choice when reviewing the new apps from the dashboard update. I love how the present Twitter in this space. Not only is it a stylized version of the front page, but it brings most of its useful functions to an easy to navigate area. It also runs as soon as you boot it, unlike Facebook and Last.fm, which requires you to download small applications to install. Your Twitter feed will update every minute or so, but it also allows you to manually update your tweets by pressing Y. All of the updates to twitter must be manually entered by the user (so no auto-spamming of your twitter feed). One disadvantage here is the Xbox 360’s twitter app’s inability to click on links. Because of the lack of a web browser, the twitter app doesn’t allow you to click on links. This is one of the main features of Twitter. Hopefully they can rig-a-ma-roll something here in the future. Also, there’s no notification of how many characters you have left when you’re typing out a tweet. This should be a simple software update fix, so hopefully Microsoft can get the ball rolling on this.

Facebook: Now on to Facebook. This was the 2^nd app I loaded from the Xbox 360. Overall, it’s a nice clean looking app. It allows for a great way to share pics from your photo album onto your TV. Even though the pictures are not as sharp as it would be on a regular computer, it’s a good alternative nonetheless. This app also allows you to post updates, and comment on other friend’s comments and/or updates. One of the few downsides of this app is its inability to access videos, apps or links from your Facebook feed or a friends Facebook feed. Because of the lack of a web browser, many key features like these suffer because of the lack of a web browser. I can only hope Microsoft comes up with a solution to this as I can see this becoming big turn off to the service.

Last.fm: Last.Fm is a nice little app for me. Not only do I love listening to steaming radio, but for a tailored music experience all from the Xbox Dashboard, there’s nothing better (until Pandora gets added of course). The service is just like Pandora where you would enter a list of favorite artists and create what they call ‘Stations”. The stations feature these favorite artists and similar sounding artists. When the songs play, you have the option of pulling up an information window, or you can let a slideshow of user-uploaded pics play. While you can’t play music outside of the program into games (which I hope changes soon), Last.fm on the Xbox 360 could be pretty useful as background music and visuals during a party or while doing chores. Still, it’s not quite as cool as Pandora, which has a more streamlined interface and the ability to pause tracks.

Zune & News: I’m not sure on this one. Although you can stream 1080p videos instantly, I don’t have a Zune to fully test this service with. The News feeds were buried in the Xbox Dashboard because, for now, there’s no interesting content for the service yet (aside from a few MSNBC news clips, as well as animated Dilbert and New Yorker comics). Overall, these were some good additions to the Xbox live service. I’m looking forward to more new compelling features and updates in the future.