40Tech

One way to switch audio output between a USB headset and your external speakers is to plug or unplug your USB headset.  In Windows 7, that will automatically switch sound between the devices.  You may not have easy access to your USB ports, though, or you may want to keep your headset plugged in all the time.  Soundswitch is a free program that allows you to set a hotkey to switch between audio output devices.

Last year, we wrote about 5 Tools to Keep You Synchronized Everywhere. That post covered not just tools to sync files, but tools to sync your workflow (such as using a tool like Lastpass to get your passwords everywhere). How about different options that can be used to keep your files in sync, with no effort on your part? Here are three options that are “fire and forget,” meaning that once you configure them, your files will be continuously synced between computers, with no effort on your part. Read on for our take on which ones come out on top.

Last Wednesday, Evernote made the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT they had been marketing for July 14th — it came with a party and everything. Unfortunately, none of what I was hoping would be in the latest release has come about yet; namely the ability to share notebooks via the desktop and mobile apps (and social sharing!). What Evernote did announce was Evernote Trunk, a central repository for API-connected services and devices. While this is not exactly as awesome as what I felt the hype promised, it is a very useful way to find other great services to work into your workflow — and it may well be another revenue stream for Evernote.

A few weeks back we announced a writers’ contest. The folks at GTDagenda, a Getting Things Done app, offered us two free-for-life premium subscriptions to their task (and life) management service ($69.95/year value, each), and we decided to give one of those subscriptions away to the winning writer of an impartial review of the app. The winner of this phase of the contest is Josh, for his exuberant and well rounded take on GTDagenda as a service (congrats Josh!). Check out his review — and how you can win the second part of the giveaway — after the jump!

One of the most annoying things about eReader apps on the iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad (that have their own dedicated stores) is their proprietary nature — namely, they generally only read books you have purchased from their respective companies, regardless of the library you already own. This can be a pain, as it leads to both multiple eReader apps on your phone and several books inevitably left twisting in the proverbial wind. You can use Stanza for iPhone to solve this problem, but why not put all of your books on that pretty iBooks bookshelf? As of version 0.7, Calibre lets you do just that!

Do you hate your local radio stations with a blinding passion? If not, you’re probably at least a little bit tired of hearing the same pop princess on the airwaves over and over and over and… well, you get the idea. Don’t despair! You’ve probably heard there are at least a few sites out there that do their best to provide you with alternatives to your local stations, and make it easy to find and lock into what you need. These are sites that will bring you real radio from around the world, as opposed to the often licence-restricted Last.FM or Pandora — and three of the best out there are RadioTuna, RadioTime, and Tun3r. Each have their good points — read on to see which will work best for you.

If you are a dedicated Windows Live Messenger user and own an iPhone, you may want to take a gander at the official, recently released (and free) iPhone app for the longstanding IM service. The new Live Messenger app is fairly slick and easy to navigate, has push notifications, displays updates from many of the services you can integrate with in your Windows Live account — including Facebook — and handles the job of basic messaging very well. That said, there are a few obvious gaps and design flaws that have made the experience a bit frustrating for some…

Do you want to be able to send faxes from home, without having to install another phone line, or share your current line?  How would you like to be able to receive faxes anywhere that you have an internet connection?  Or how about sending a fax via email?  That is all possible now, using online [...]

When I heard, yesterday, that Apple had approved the Opera Mini browser for iPhone, I was a bit more than surprised — I was shocked. Apple’s track record in rejecting any app that might interfere with their business plans or control over their userbase seemed to scream that there was absolutely no way they would [...]

Your browser start page, also known as your Home Page, is a launching pad of sorts.  The first page that you see when you open your web browser, your start page can impact your browsing session in a couple of ways.  First, the type of page you use as your start page can impact the [...]