Windows 8.1: Leaked Features and Improvements over Windows 8

Windows 8.1, codenamed Blue is the first major update after Windows 8 and expected to arrive here for public review on 26th June 2013. It has lots of improvement and added functionality to mitigate drawbacks of Windows 8 such as start button returns, more personalization settings, improved apps store and more. Microsoft will provide this update for free to Windows 8 and RT users,available from the Apps Store.


Microsoft has implemented these updates to Windows 8 after receiving feedback and reviews from  the avid PC users and has high hope to provide uniquely build OS for both consumers and businesses. Needless to say, this time Microsoft won't want users to be disappointed and doesn't want the charms of Windows 8 get ruined.

Let’s talk about some leaked features of Windows 8.1, the upcoming version. In depth details about all the features will be available only after putting it in the live test environment.

Start Button Restored
Much awaited and long missed traditional start button is likely to be placed again in Windows 8.1. However, the functionality may differ as compare to start button in older version of Windows. New looking start button will alike as latest Windows logo and is placed at the bottom exactly where it exists in the previous windows versions.

                   


However, unlike its functioning in previous Windows copy, press start button in Windows 8.1 a. k. a. blue will take user to the metro-style start screen or UI interface. Sources also confirmed that the so called new start button will not be visible on the metro-style/ Windows app store screen but can be accessed by hovering over your mouse to bottom left corner of the screen.

Though, user may able play with start button settings and can set it to open in old fashioned manner in which, all programs were available on the single screen. That will makes it easier for user to find installed programs that is not pinned on the start screen or has quick launch icon on the desktop screen.

Directly Boot into Desktop

This one would be best news for users who hates the modern start screen which appears just after starting Windows 8. In the so called “Milestone Preview” release of Windows 8.1, users may able to boot directly into the desktop environment instead of seeing the bogus UI screen filled with apps.

In this upcoming release of Windows, users have the full capability to bypass infamous UI screen and see their traditional desktop screen on startup. Metro apps screen distracted windows users to a great extend and becomes the primary causes of not so much success of Window 8.

Since the said features are still not confirmed by Microsoft, anything can be change when it ships finally to consumer hands.

Option to Set Personalized Wallpaper on Start & Lock Screen

There is much more added to make your PC more customized exactly in the way you want it to be. Now you can your own set of wallpapers to lock screen or change background and accent colors to start screen or apps screen. In the current running Windows OS, you can only change the color scheme and accents, but these limitation would likely be lifted with Windows upcoming release. For the lock screen, you can create a slide show of photos that is stored in the PC or hosted on the cloud. You can also take pictures using built in camera from the lock screen apps without logging in.

This is not over, to slim the confusion between start screen and your desktop screen, you can set your desktop background as your start screen background or vice versa and makes both screen highly looks alike.

Customize Tiles with easy

Windows 8 has large tiles button at the start screen that looks ugly and distracts users by default. Things get even worse as the user won't provide with any option to make tiles large or small for apps or programs which they use most or which they'll use less frequently.

Many flexibilities were also added in customizing tiles such as rearranging group or tiles, select multiple apps at once to resize, uninstall or rearrange them. This will allow adding more tiles or pinning more apps to your start screen and starting digging them.

Unified Search Screen

Search feature in Windows 8.1 is completely revamped and feature rich. You'll get the search results from the web, apps, skydrive or settings in a simple to read, hierarchy form and available without tapping menu's that makes it easier for you to find almost anything, either from the web or from your local computer.

P.S. This search feature will use Bing search to fetch results from the web.

You can scroll down at bottom for search queries that yields many results. In Windows 8, user gets the results only from apps by default. To see results from settings or files, you'll need to tap it, available at the bottom of apps button.


Inbuilt apps get redesigned and Good Looking Windows apps store

Whenever we talk about tablet or smart-phone, we can't forget about apps. But now windows 8.1 have everything that you could find on tablet and much more to offer in near future. Windows 8 inbuilt apps like “Music” or “Photos” app were updated to helps you make the most of it in Windows 8.1 a k a Windows Blue. Such as, photo apps will let you quickly edit or adjust pictures or open them directly from other placed like mail, cloud server or camera apps. Whereas, music app is redesigned to help you quickly pick and play music from your great music collection.

Microsoft is planning to offer more inbuilt apps with Windows 8.1 which will launch very soon.

Unlike Windows 8 apps screen where only one app could be seen at a time, now you can have at most four apps on one single screen. You can also view the double window of same app on one screen, such as two running window of Music app can be seen on one single screen.

Windows 8.1 apps store would get also updated where large number of apps in top free, new release and picks for you would available that help you decide more suitable apps from the huge list. Apps screen will constitutes more information and an extra area is added to help you choose more related apps.


There are still much more to explore in this highly redesigned Windows OS. We can't predict about its success or failure as like Windows 7 which is a very successful release of Microsoft just after failed Windows Vista but can presume that It'll going to tougher the operating system marketing challenges as well as brings revolutionary change in the apps history. Let’s wait and watch!!!

How to salvage data from a Volume Corruption in Mac?

• Mac OS X General Volume and Partition information

To know about your Macintosh HD and volumes go to Finder<Application<Utilities and Disk Utilities window. The left hand side of the disk utility windows shows all the partitions along with your Macintosh HD.

• How to find if a volume is logically corrupted?

Even before the disk utility reports you about the possible logical corruption on the OS X volumes, you can judge by the absurd behaviour of that particular Mac volume. This absurd behaviour may include:

• Inaccessibility of the Mac volume,

• The volume may not be formatted or any other operations may not be performed on damaged volume,

• The volume in disk utility may appear in light shade. This light shaded partition is indication of an unmounted Mac volume. The unmounted drive causes inaccessibility of data that is stored on it.

These are not all but some of the common incidents that begin to show up when one of the Mac volumes goes corrupt. The situation is calculated to be worse when the corruption case is of the boot volume of the OS X Mac. To assure the presence of errors on the OS X volumes go to Disk Utility and select a partition from the left menu. Now, in First-Aid tab click the verify disk to scan volume for errors.

Consider the above snapshot of a Mac volume diagnosed with logical corruption. In a normal scenario the disk utility scans the media and reports the final summary as - . But in an opposite case the disk utility will return each diagnosed corruption with a red line indicating 'danger'. Follow the summary of the 'Verify Disk' process and execute the below places button which is 'Repair Disk'. Many a times the disk utility volume report also indicates faulty disk permissions. So, you have another pair of Verify and Repair Permissions button in the same First-Aid tab. Both of the options can be used to check damaged permissions and ultimately repair them.

Types of logical corruption occurring on Mac partition(s)

It wouldn't be wrong to categorize the types of logical corruption of volume into these phases, namely:

• Mac boot volume corruption,
• damaged permissions on OS X,
• Affliction to caches files and folders.

Most known reasons responsible for logically damaged Mac volumes:

• The first and the foremost reason for logical damages would be abrupt system shut offs, including hard Mac shut downs,

• Fallacious applications causing damages to OS X resources,

• Directory corruption of the volume leads to complete inaccessibility of the data,

• Although Mac is much secure against malware and viruses but possibility of logical failure of the volume can't be ruled out.

• Other instances of volume corruption could be summed as – damage to catalog files, overflow extent, faulty journaled, errors in multi-linked files etc.

Types of Failed Volume error messages displayed by Mac OS X:

This error in particular is displayed when the header is corrupted in one of the Mac volumes.

'Volume Header needs minor repair
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair'

Initially start with the Disk Utility to repair the corruption, else follow below tutorial.

How to salvage data from a logically failed volume?

If salvaging data is on the priority then here are few tips you can implement to get maximum data out from a corrupted hard drive.

• Get a demo version of the Macintosh file recovery program. Please careful not to go for a free recovery program as they are inefficient to salvage data from a corrupted hard drive. Yes, they sometimes may recover data which is deleted normally but don't trust such tools for advance operations like recovery from a damaged hard drive.

• Scan your corrupted hard drive with the data recovery Mac tool & preview the recoverable files from the inaccessible volume. Once you registered for the tool to save the recovered data back to Mac, be careful you choose another destination.

• In case your boot volume is corrupted then choose a data recovery Mac tool with boot DVD. This boot DVD can be of immense help as it will help you to start the Mac and then scan the boot volume with the file recovery tool. Once all recovered files are previewed you can save them on an external hard drive.  

How to resolve a failed volume?

Above is the case when salvaging data is on your priority. If any how you don't care about the data or you don't have any important data on that volume then you can go for repair first.

Free tips to resolve a corrupt partition on Mac OS X:

• Jump to disk utility and hit repair disk for the damaged volume. The disk utility will surely resolve errors that are not gigantic in nature. In case the problem is too big for disk utility then follow the next step.

• Get clone software and an external hard drive.

• Once you develop a bootable clone media for your Mac you can then perform repair task on the volume with the help of a disk repair utility. This process can also be applied to Mac start-up disk in case of corruption.

How to timely find out a Mac volume corruption?

To timely find out a volume corruption or to prevent a possible corruption, monitor the SMART status of the hard drive. Also, put a habit of verifying and repairing Mac disk on periodic basis.

Let us not ignore some physical damages too?

Yes, a Mac disk is also prone to physical damages. Among most unpopular events of hard drive crashes are the bad sectors. Again, there is no utility present in Mac to figure out no. of bad blocks on the hard drive. You have to turn up to a non Apple utility to check out the presence of bad sectors on the Macintosh HD and partitions.

Once the 3rd party tool reports bad sectors on the hard drive, immediately use a clone utility to copy the media to another media. Don't worry the cloning utility as well as imaging doesn't replicate the bad sectors of the hard drive. It only copies the good and healthy sectors. While doing so you may loose some pieces of data that is located on to the bad sectors of the hard drive. But again you will be able to succeed in salvaging data from the entire hard drive in question.

Here's How to Fix “Can't delete a folder, require Admin Privileges”

At times, you may found yourself unable to delete any specific file or folder from your Windows like Windows 8/7/Vista/XP etc. Instead, you'll keep getting error like 'Access is Denied', 'Can't delete folder, not enough permission', 'Requires admin privileges to delete this folder' or any other file and folder permission errors. Remember, these errors are annoying and will not go away over time or the normal troubleshooting method. Alternatively, these errors will continue to arise even after you're logged in as administrator or have full rights to your system.

This issue may occur at any instance or after reinstalling a fresh copy of Windows. The common causes behind the aforementioned error could be:

1. Third party faulty programs that try to remain control or gain access on any particular files or folders that you would want to delete.
2. System files or any control panel settings accessing information from that particular files or folders.
3. Any running application is using resources from that particular files or folder like settings and options.
4. The file or folder containing targeted files is currently open in any other programs or applications.

Finally, how can I delete such folders or files?

There is an obvious solution to delete almost any type of files or folders that keeps throwing this error.  You will need to take control first on such directory and then tries to remove it. Follow the steps mentioned below to take control on almost any file and then remove it:

1. Open notepad by going to Start > All Programs > Accessories.
2. Press 'CTRL + 'S'' and name it to 'delete.bat'. Preferably, save this file to the desktop location.
3. Type the following entries as it is in the blank text document and press the same button (CTRL + S) to save file again.
   

   “SET DIRECTORY_NAME="C:\Locked files or folders"
   TAKEOWN /f %DIRECTORY_NAME% /r /d y
   ICACLS %DIRECTORY_NAME% /grant administrators:F /t
   PAUSE”

   Note: You'll need to change the bold text as per your current problem directory. For example: “D:\delete files or folders” because you want to delete folder entitled ‘delete files or folders' residing in D:\ drive.
   
4. Right click on the file 'delete.bat' from the desktop and select 'Run as administrator'. You'll now have full control over the problem files and folders and can easily go for deletion. You may also able to delete internal directory residing in such folders.

Alternate Solution

If you are bit experienced in working with Ubuntu Live CD, can use it to boot normally in Ubuntu mode, find, and delete such files or folders from there and choose to delete it. This time, you'll not be thrown with the same error messages as before.

Have you tried these methods and still facing trouble while deleting such files? Or, have an alternate solution to fix this issue, post your thoughts in comment section.

How to Refresh or Reset Your Windows 8 PC Using Recovery Drive?

Microsoft provides two great utility to help revives your Windows 8 PC problems entitled ‘Reset your PC’ & ‘Refresh your PC’. Reset your PC will wipes off everything on the PC and make your system like a new one. In other words, Reset your PC tool will reinstall a fresh copy of Windows 8 (replace old copy of Windows) and completely erase everything stored on the hard drive. This helps user to get away from any virus / Trojan infected or damaged PC to start everything from scratch.

However, if you've mistakenly erased something important files or documents while resetting your PC and want to get it back, can do so by using professional recovery software. This sort of software's have certain limitations like it can't recover data that's overwritten or can't run on the drive that is physically damaged or not showing in the software drives list. 

Refresh your PC tool will ensures the safety of stored hard drive content as well as keep all the settings and customizations intact. Standard formatting is used in refreshing your PC and any removed apps will be automatically reinstalled once the refreshing operation is completed.

Stuff you require

You'll need a recovery drive and Windows 8 Installation DVD to reset or refresh your PC. Though, if you don't have the recovery drive and wants to create a new one go through the tutorial of making a recovery drive in Windows 8 and create a new one.

Note: If you only want to reset your PC from within Windows, press 'CTRL + 'W'' to open search screen and type 'Remove' in the search text box. Select Remove everything and Reinstall Windows to launch reset your PC tool.

Getting Started with 'Reset your PC'

Running reset your PC from the recovery drive requires system restarts as the system can be reset only in Windows recovery environment (RE).

# 1
Connect recovery drive (the USB device which we've created previously) to your PC and restart your system. Now the system will boot from the recovery drive and gives you the screen as in the image below,


           


# 2
Select Troubleshoot tile from choose an option screen. The next screen constitutes three options: Refresh your PC, Reset your PC, and Advanced options. As we're going to reset your PC, you'll need to click on the Reset your PC option located at mid.


              

# 3
Reset your PC confirmation window will open to inform you about what will happen when you choose to reset your PC. For example all of your personal files and Apps will be removed; your PC settings will be changed back to their defaults. Once you're assured and decided to go with reset, Click on the Next button located at the bottom right corner of the screen.

              

# 4
Locate the desired copy of Windows 8 OS (if you've dual versions of Windows 8) that you want to reset and click on it. Next screen will asks you to insert Windows 8 installation DVD. Remember to remove the recovery drive before inserting installation DVD as the system will starts many time during the whole process and keep plugging the recovery drive will causes unnecessary delays.

                

P.S: Be sure to have installation DVD before heading towards this step.


# 5
Soon after inserting the installation DVD, system will begin verifying media for its integrity and displays the next screen, which asks you to choose the drive to delete files such as the drive where Windows 8 is installed or all the drive/partitions currently partitioned in the hard drive.

             


# 6
Next screen will asks you to choose the desired formatting methods such as remove files using standard method or permanently clean your PC. The second option is bit useful especially when you're trying to sell or handover your Windows 8 PC to someone else and wants to get ensured that the stored data is permanently deleted which can't be recovered even by using professional recovery utilities. 

           

‘Just remove my files’ option is fairly quick and uses standard formatting method to clean your PC. On the other hand, ‘Fully clean the drive’ will permanently wipe everything and insert ‘0’ information throughout the sectors and blocks of your hard drive and makes it impossible to recover anything from the cleaned hard drive.


# 7
At last, setup is all set to reset your PC based on the finalized selections and parameters defined. Click on the Reset button to start resetting your PC. The requested action might take some time and gives you the percentage of operation that is completed on the black screen window. In the end, Windows will begin reinstalling all of the system drivers, settings, and screen options again to get your PC ready.

             



Steps to Refresh your PC

Refresh your PC is still a great way to resolve issues with your PC without deleting or modifying the stored data and installed Apps. To ensure that all the preexisting Apps were successfully installed after performing refresh your PC operation, this tool will automatically create a list of installed Apps as well as Apps which couldn't be installed that you need to manually install from the Microsoft Apps store. 

You can also run this tool from within the Windows as like reset your PC tool, though its always a good idea to run refresh your PC tool using the recovery drive as unstable or infected environment could cause tasks to be remain uncompleted or not at all and the problem might resurfaced even after successfully completing the refresh your PC task.

Note: As the first step of reset your PC is quite same, you can read it from the step #1 and instead of choosing reset your PC, you need to select refresh your PC from the step #2.

Select Refresh your PC option from the troubleshoot screen to begin refreshing PC. You can always check the information available at the refresh your PC screen to know about what happens once you choose to refresh your system. The options are like your PC and personalization settings won't change, PC settings will be changed back to their defaults, Apps from Windows store will be kept, Apps you installed from discs or websites will be removed, list of removed Apps will be saved on your desktop. Click on the Next button to proceed.


           

All of the rest steps will be same as in reset your PC except, refresh your PC will begin reinstalling removed Apps after successfully completing the aforementioned tasks. Refresh your PC tool lets you find the Apps which weren't installed during the aforementioned operation. Find the .html file entitled Removed Apps from the desktop and open it using IE or any browser you'd prefer to use.

 


Above image gives you clear view of how the removed Apps file will look like. Later then, you can go for installing the same Apps again either from the Windows Apps store or from the publisher website.

What would you like to do now?

You might already have clear understanding about which operation best suites to your need. However, I'd like to share my own opinion about both. Refresh your PC gives you great chance to bring back everything to its normal state without modifying or deleting anything (except PC settings). However, refreshing PC won't remove any virus or damaged registries inside the system and cause your system to fail or become unstable again even after fully completing the refresh your PC operation.

Where as, reset your PC utility will force you to start everything from scratch yet fixes all the running issues by installing a fresh copy of Windows. So you might not have to worry about anything malicious and start using fresh and faster Windows 8 again.

Both options were highly useful and recommended as well as plays unique role when anything goes beyond your control. It’s all up to you about weather you want just to restore system to its default or completely remove everything from your PC. Don't forget to add your own opinions and any pros or cons that you've found during any ongoing resetting or refreshing operation.

Safari – Make it fast and glossy with new add-ons

Web browsing is a part of our daily life and on Mac it is the 'Safari' by default that lightens the browsing experience. Safari which is now 10 years old, began its journey from version 1 to 6 and served almost all Apple devices like Macs, iPods, iPads and iPhones. Being an Apple application, Safari percepts to be faster than other counterparts on Mac OS X. Remember, this is a perception and not to be termed as a fact until solid explanation. We know how Google Chrome has directed the Internet browsing in ways. 

Talking of Safari now, one should make sure to input basic maintenance activities to make Safari up to date and performing. Like any other browser or application, Safari will slow down after a period of time. That time period may arrive sooner or later depending upon the handling of the Mac OS X. But you can halt that time from arriving by keeping the browser clean and clear.

What Activity to monitor on Safari?

Monitor Caches on Safari – Cache files can eventually slow down the speed of a website loading on to Safari. This happens over a period of time when cache data keeps on accumulating in the folders & gets damaged causing adverse effects on the browsing. Older caches will keep on loading the old pages, neglecting the newer updates of the site until you clean them off. To do so, go to Library and find caches folder. Drag it to trash. You may feel some websites to go slower but cleaning out caches is an important task of the overhauling of the browser. After a day or so you will gain the same good loading speed.

Reset the browser – If you don't bother about any information to lose on Safari, then choosing to reset the browser is recommended. This takes less than a minute or may be a minute but quickly restore back the safari to factory settings.  Do it like this, Go to Safari Menu and expand to choose Reset Safari. You will be warned of loosing information stored at back-end. Proceed to clean the safari and set to default settings.

Monitor Preferences files – The role of Preferences files on Mac is crucial as this only decides the positive and negative behaviour of an application. The application will show its abrupt behaviour moment the preference files become faulty. The best way to check the preferences files on Mac is to go Disk utility way and click 'Verify Disk'. Upon finding some of them with red coloured lines, it is best to delete them.

Update Safari – If you are below than the Safari v6 on your Mac then think about an update. Before you update cross verify the system requirement with that of Safari.

Excite your Safari browsing with these features -

So you have implemented the above terms on Safari and made it fast as it should be. Now time is to install few add-ons to make it livelier.

For Safari 5 and social media lovers,

• Download Social Fixer for Facebook, an app that produces different themes and skin, much more can be read here. If you have a large appetite for photos on Facebook then add Facebook Photo Zoom to enlarge an image over mouse hover.

• Just like you I love to tweet and for that Apple Extension (http://extensions.apple.com/) offers range of twitter tools to die for. All these will glow with Safari (v5).

• For those who can't live latest political, social, business, & sport news must install NYTIMES to receive uninterrupted supply of latest happenings around the globe.

• You can also improve the user experience of Safari browser by controlling unwanted and sometimes highly irritating advertisements. Use Ad-Block add-on to immediately stop these ads for intruding your web spaces. If you are no more interested in any kind of promotional offers from manufacturers, this kind of stuff is made for you. Still you love to know about the latest products and services then let the ads be there.

• GMAIL Counter, a smart app for Safari let you monitor your Inbox and fresh emails. Once installed it will show up in the Safari toolbar.

• Diggo.com which is an information distributing platform brings you the “Awesome Screenshot” add-on. Now, this is something you and me and all of us will enjoy for sure. It capture/share the images from the web pages to other websites. You don’t have to save the image from the page to the hard drive using right mouse click and then load it for sharing. With this app you can do it within few mouse clicks.

Safari also got some fabulous apps for video browsing

• Ever wanted to watch only a YOUTUBE video without any distraction from the surroundings? It was not possible until the app clea.nr Videos for YouTube came to Safari. In a normal mode you will watch the video with all of the items scattered on the four corners, but with this app you will watch the video on a plain white screen. “We Remove Clutter”, this is what the developers of this app claims. Must try it out for peaceful video watching.

• No stopping here as there are some other good apps waiting for your OS X Safari. If you have no concerns for the YouTube videos and only desires for the fast browsing, install ClickToFlash which will restrict flash items of a webpage to load. The speed of the Internet will then be channelized to launch other items of the webpage quickly.

• Another app that betters the productivity on YOUTUBE is “Turn Off the Lights” by Stefan. It makes things simpler by dimming the background of the video you are viewing. You might get a feel of watching the video in a theatre. To know more try this app now.

• NO time to loose for now as you know what lots off to be done on SAFARI. Make it the way you feel like.

Hang out with Google Chrome for Mac?

At-least keep another browser ready to launch on the Mac and that other browser is definitely going to be GOOGLE's CHROME. Chrome is fast, reliable, genuine, and error-free, of-course widely used browser than I.E and FIREFOX. Though some of you may not find it as glossy as Safari but it is still a better choice over Firefox which have a tendency to slow down or break down moment you load it with many add-ons.

The above Safari extensions are easily available with Chrome; actually chrome web store is over-loaded with thousands of free/paid add-ons. Not in mood to buy one then add most of the free ones to enjoy sophisticated browsing on Mac OS X. If you are a Google + lover then chrome being a Google product gives you variety of facilities such as Google+ Notifications. For Chrome you need to have Mac OS X10.6 or later.

Just FYI, My Mac got both the Safari and Chrome and that helps me maintain my flow of work in a situation which might go beyond my control.

Apps that uninstall stubborn software from Mac OS X

No rocket science is required to remove an application or software from a Mac hard drive. This job is simply accomplished by dragging the icon of the software to the trash folder and emptying it further. Visually we can't locate the trashed file anywhere on the Mac partitions and considered it to be completely gone from the OS X. This is misconception and at the background some of the associated files of the removed application are still found to be located on the said location. These associated files of the deleted utility comprises of -  

• file preferences,
• application logs,
• cache files
• Installer such as .pkg and .dmg.

These files are unintentionally kept on the Mac OS location to ease up the re-installation of the same application in the near future. Leftovers easily pick up the required information and set the application the way it was earlier. In actual, the size of these files is small and at times you may choose to ignore their presence. But if you are a core Mac user who even want to save small locations on the drive or at-least want the Mac to stay clean then you must find out such leftovers and kick them out.

It is also noted that these leftovers tend to create havoc at times when you try hard to install a newer update of the software. To play foul these files won't let you do a proper update as their stored information doesn't match with the newer version of th tool. So, in any case it is always good to eliminate these useless files that at times are troublesome also.

OS X or even disk utility is limited to let you find these files in an organized manner. If your Mac has limited partitions and files (folders) you can even think of manually trashing these files. In the opposite case, it would be a bad dream to find/remove leftovers from a large hard drive or files. In my best knowledge, there are absolute free tools that scan the entire Macintosh HD and bring out every single piece of these leftovers.

Option 1) Stellar Speed up Mac
Stellar Speedup Mac can be seen in much larger perspective to clean your entire Mac not only from the leftovers but also other kinds of unwanted files. Though its paid, the best part I liked about the software was the facility of a free uninstaller and removal of junk files (including logs, system junks, leftovers & extensions). The moment you launch the app it begins to analyse your main internal hard drive which in most cases is 'Macintosh HD'. The left bar indicates the process as well as amount of garbage data it accumulated from the system. The free version will let you remove the above mentioned files completely from the Mac OS X. If any day, you come across a stubborn or infected software that refuses to go to trash then make use of this tool that can even uninstall a dogged file.

Free Uninstaller for Stubborn Apps

Option 2) App Cleaner

It's free and worked likes a charm for my Mac (and yours too). Though it is not as big as Stellar Speedup Mac but fulfills the purpose of removing an app and its leftovers from the Mac without much effort. As you drag any icon on the trash, drag the same on the App Cleaner uninstall feature and relax. The App Cleaner reaches out every corner of the Macintosh HD to dig out small & large pieces of application's waste and eliminate them securely. 

Both the above mentioned tool requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to operate. You must evaluate the free features of these tools to assure your Mac remains clean from unwanted junks.

Refresh Your Windows 8 PC for Faster PC Performance

At many occasions, your Windows 8 PC might start performing abruptly and hangs at the same screen. However, unlike other Windows previous OS versions, Windows 8 will allow you to automatically repair system and make it as fresh as you used it the very first time. Refresh Your PC is another addition to great features of Windows 8 that lets you improve system performance and speed up PC without affecting the stored files on the hard drive.

Refresh PC will reinstall all the applications from scratch that you've already installed on your PC while ensuring that no data or applications will be lost after completing the action. Refresh PC will place a copy of stored files and applications at special place to prevent unwanted things from deleting your important files and damaging the installed applications. Refresh PC will keep ensure the following things to your PC during ongoing Refresh PC operation:

• Any customization or personal settings will not be deleted or modified
• PC settings or modified system parameters will be restored to defaults
• The only applications will remain intact which were installed from the Windows store. Though, you'll lose any or all the applications that weren't installed from the Microsoft store.

Though, It’s always recommend to have your latest backup copy created before refreshing PC to make sure that you will not going to lose your important stuff when disaster strikes. However, you still have option to recover data, just in case you lost it anyhow.

How to refresh your Windows 8 PC?

• Press 'Windows + Q' to open all apps with search bar at the top left corner and type Change PC settings. Choose the Settings tab just below the App.
• Click on the general tab and choose to Get Started  from the “Refresh your PC without affecting your files” option.
• On the next screen, you may able to see that what will open when you start refreshing your PC like files & personalization settings, PC settings etc. See the image below for your reference:
  
  
  
  
• Click on Next button. Your PC will restart and might take few minutes to complete the requested action.
  
                     

Once the PC is successfully refreshed, you will able to feel the difference in system performance and any freezing issues completely removed.

How to monitor a Mac OS hard drive?

This article will shed some light upon free ways available to monitor several activities on the Macintosh HD and its several volumes. We shall also be taking the help of non-Apple utilities to take care of some of the drive issues.  

• S.M.A.R.T - This comes in-built with every Mac model and is child's play to view the overall status of the health of the hard drive. To view S.M.A.R.T, go through Application<Utilities<Disk Utilities, select the main hard drive (Seagate 100.00 GB HD). Else, you can also select the hard drive displayed with icons to generate SMART status. One you choose a hard drive, click on the “Info” button, or hit the keyboard command which is “CMD+I”. Another window appears displaying the related S.M.A.R.T information. A positive SMART status brings relief to a Mac user; otherwise a failing status is a sign of concern i.e. hard drive failure.  

• Temperature: - I bet, this activity might be on the least priority in normal room conditions. Ever wondered about those Mac users sitting with their Macs in places like Paraguay or some other place which are quite hot and humid. This is where the need for monitoring the hard drive temperature is most needed. Since, disk utility doesn't give you facility to manually monitor the hard drive temperature; there is no. of paid apps that can do it for you.  Temperature Gauge: - Available at $10, proved to be of great help when you need to analyze the rise & fall of your Mac hard drives.

• Verify Disk: - This is the field of disk utility and it perfects in it by running a full scan of the Macintosh HD, finding logical faults and bringing up to the user. If the Mac volumes are suffering from damaged directory structure, Invalid Tree Nodes, and bad blocks then anyhow the disk utility will let the user know. Though disk utility is built to repair any kind of logical corruption some major errors & directory corruption may be beyond the repair of Disk Utility. Moreover, if the hard drive has got few or more bad blocks then disk utility won't let you find them. To overcome this limitation of the disk utility, take the help of a 3rd party tool like 'Stellar Drive Monitor' which is equipped to scan the entire hard drive and locate all the bad sectors one-by-one. As soon as you realize the Mac disk is infected with bad blocks, immediately take necessary action by using a hard drive clone utility to image the drive and save it to a safer location. The imaging utility will ascertain that it copies all the data from the good sectors, leaving behind the bad ones. This way you can save all that data residing on the Mac OS X hard drive that contain bad blocks. 

Conclusion: - It is always good to ensure Mac hard drive safety with the help of Macs own disk utility as well as a non – Apple tool. Though such tools are not available for free but spending few bucks on buying these tools rather than spending on a hard drive repair is left to the users to decide.