58 MAXIMUMPC | MAY 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com
SOFTY
AWARDS
VMware workstation rocks due to
its ability to let you run multiple
operating systems on one PC.
Install Linux, Solaris, and other
desktop environments right along-
side any Windows version—includ-
ing those as far back as Windows
3.1 (provided you have the licenses,
of course).
VMware’s features trump those
of a typical virtual machine environ-
ment. You can use the program totake snapshots and roll
back your computer to a
previous state, and you
can take screenshots and
videos of your system’s
activities, which comes
in handy if you’re trying
to help someone with a
troubleshooting issue.
While this app comes
with a hefty price tag, we’d
rather have a program that
does everything than a
lesser, cheaper alternative.
$190, http://www.vmware.comSo you got suckered into buying a bunch of DRM-shackled songs
from iTunes—just so you could easily manage them on your iPod. But
now you’re ready to cut that leash so you can move to a more fl exible
player. Download DoubleTwist, give it access to your iTunes folder,
and you won’t lose that costly investment. The process occurs in real
time, but it works.
But this ingenious—and free—program does a lot more than that.
It can also automatically grab photos from your friends’ Facebook
profi les and synchronize them to your PC and your smartphone or
MP3 player. What’s more, you can also share those tunes (and pic-
tures and videos, too) with all your Facebook friends. Cool!
Free, http://www.doubletwist.comWhat’s worse than Apple not giv-
ing its users defragmentation
support in OSX? The support
in Windows Vista—clearly the
slowest defragmentation appli-
cation ever. We’re talking since
the Winchester hard drive was
invented in 1956. It’s as though the
sectors are fi rst squeezed through
a quantum singularity and then
beamed back and reassembledinto a contiguous fi le by an angry
shop of sector elves two steps away
from a strike. For those of you who
are mad as hell and unwilling to take
it anymore, there’s Auslogics Disk
Defrag. Install this free defragger on
your Vista OS and your blood pres-
sure will drop instead of rise every
time you defrag. XP users can ben-
efi t too—the app is also much faster
than Window XP’s freebie tool.
Free, http://www.auslogics.comAuslogics Disk Defrag
Kiss Vista’s crappy defragger
goodbye!DoubleTwist
An iTunes DRM stripper—and more!
VMware Workstation 6
Host every OS you can think of on a
single machine!We don’t actually know how long Vista’s defrag
takes because we always lose patience with it.
With Disk Defrag it takes a mere 15 minutes.Facebook fiends will love the way DoubleTwist
enables simple file sharing, but its DRM-stripping
and sync features are pretty cool, too.Store profiles for any number of virtual machines, then
switch among your collection of operating systems.