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Every so often, you may need to download something to make your computer or mobile device run better. There are millions of pieces of software and applications available for every operating system you can think of. To help you find the best deals on software of every type, we’ve created our new Downloads center! Every day, we feature the very best software – including games! – that we can find, at excellent prices!

I’ve been downloading and gathering together software since 1996. I admit it… I’m addicted to software! I always have been. On the downloads center, we even have free software available. If you want to download your favorite software at no cost to you, just choose the program you want, complete a simple offer, and download the full version of your chosen application!

There are several people on our team who are all monitoring this software to the best of their ability. They don’t allow any questionable content to be added and they haven’t let anything with malware in it slip by, either. If you ever come across something on the site you don’t feel is quite “right” in some way, please send me an email. We will look into it faster than immediately.

We post an aggregate every day on Geeks in the blog section. In that post, you’ll find the very newest programs we’ve come across, as well as some really excellent deals. I’m also doing my best to keep Twitter and Facebook updated with the hottest deals.

If you’re not interested in this service, that’s fine. If you are – check it out! I’m all ears, and want to hear your feedback. We can’t make the site better without your help!

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Download Center

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Most of the screencasts we have done have been ones that help you learn about different types of software. The one today, submitted by Joe, is no different. He has created a screencast to show all of you how to use AppTrap to remove applications quickly and effectively.

When you remove an application from OS X, it can leave files such as preferences and documents. AppTrap will help you remove all of the associated files and permissions from an application. There are other programs availalbe to help you do this, but they are either paid-for versions, or don’t do the job very well. AppTrap is not only free, but it is powerful. It will help you get the job done!

With AppTrap, when you move an application to the trash, you’re automatically asked if you want to move the associated preference files as well. Now that’s uninstallation – the way it should be!

Once AppTrap is downloaded and installed, it is quite simple to use. Now, when you drag an application to the trash to delete it, a box will automatically pop up from AppTrap. It will ask you if you want to remove all associated system files, as well. You can choose whether or not to do this, based on your own preferences for each application.

AppTrap is a small – yet powerful – piece of software that helps you keep your OS X installation nice and clean, and free of leftover junk from uninstalled applications.

Thanks, Joe, for a great screencast! We’re looking forward to seeing what you come up with in the future.

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How to Use AppTrap

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You’ll never have more fun finding free software for Mac OS X. This is one of the reasons I love the Mac community – you’d never find such an effort happening with Windows shareware developers.

If you’re looking to save money on Mac software, you may want to stay tuned for the next MacHeist. You can have fun while you save money and get free software. I met up with two of the guys involved with MacHeist while I was at Macworld.

What happens is that people attend MacHeist, and complete missions – such as puzzles and riddles. As they solve them, they pick up free software. MacHeist’s missions are an opportunity for members to live out some of those secret agent fantasies, including mission briefings, simulated web espionage, and a storyline packed with tech-mystery intrigue, while earning free Mac software.

It doesn’t end with the games and free software. At the end of the Heist, you can purchase a Mac Bundle for only $49.00. That bundle includes over $500 worth of Mac Apps!! In addition, 25% of your purchase price will be donated to the charity of your choice. That’s seriously impressive. In the first year, $200,000 was given to various charities – with an additional $500,000 raised and donated this past year! I can only image what MacHeist III will bring this year!

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How to Get Tons of Mac Software for Free: MacHeist

I don’t know about you, but I follow a lot of different things. Reading your plethora of RSS feeds can be extremely time consuming if any of them are even remotely active. I’ve found a solution, and it can work in conjunction with Google Reader, or another reader you may use – it’s called Snackr.

Snackr is an Adobe AIR application, so it is designed by nature to work cross-platform. It’s an RSS ticker that will randomly pull content from your all of your feeds and display it. If you see something interesting you can click it once and get a preview popup, or click it twice to view that article in a browser window.

Snackr also tells you where the article came from and how old it is. You can set your ticker preferences to show you feed articles up to 30 days old, with the lowest setting being one day. For those of you who need up-to-the-minute news and information, Snackr could be the just right application for you to keep up.

Snackr is very easy to install. All you need to do is go to http://snackr.net and download the free application. There are special instructions for Linux users to follow, but they say the application may be a bit buggy because of previous AIR problems.

Once installed, the program will welcome you and tell you to get some feeds. It will ask you to start with a sample feed set, import a feed list from another feed reader, or add feeds manually (and tells you how). If you choose the sample feed set, you’ll start getting articles right away, ticking across the bottom of your screen. You’ll be given articles from Adobe, the Dictionary.com Word of the Day, Astronomy pictures, CNET News, and a variety of others. Want to use your own instead? Choose the import or manual option and then you can tell Snackr to open your saved OPML file.

You can dock Snackr on any of the four sides of your screen. To move it, all you need to do is click and drag it to another area of the screen and it will dock to the closest position.

If you are brave, you can download the test builds available at Google Code. You also have the opportunity to sign up for their public beta. Don’t forget, you can also follow Snackr on Twitter.

Do you know of other great RSS applications? What are YOUR opinions about Snackr?

Too Much RSS to Digest? Snack on It with Snackr!

Hey Chris, I wanted to tell people in your videos and chat my favorite use of Portable Applications. I am now dual-booting Vista and XP, just for the programs that run on XP and barely work on Vista. Instead of installing the programs on both Vista and XP, I’m running the programs off of my 2 gigabyte Cruzer micro usb flash drive. I’ve found some awesome programs that I’ve run smoothly right off the drive. The increasing sizes of these drives makes them more convenient and easy to use. Here are my top 10 recommended portable app’s, in no particular order.

• Firefox Easily the most powerful open source browser is also available in portable form. You can even save your bookmarks, addons, and history right to the usb.
• NVU Portable Easy Html coding on the road with NVU. Whenever I need to code something in HTML (well hey its better than Frontpage) really quickly.
• GIMP Portable Open Source Photoshop-like program. Portable edition helps so you don’t have to install all the stuff on your computer.
• Filezilla My FTP client of choice. (And I know Chris recommends WinSCP, but I think they’re all the same.) Runs fast and allows you to upload on the fly.
• VLC Great program for watching a lot of Video and Audio formats.
• Open Office Similar to Microsoft Office, this document editor has much of the functionality of the expensive Microsoft Office.
• 7-Zip Unzips many file formats, such as RAR and ZIP
• Foxit Reader Instead of using Adobe’s slow and junky PDF reader, use this free (for basic features) one thats fast.
• Miranda IM Instant Messaging Program that works with AIM, Jabber, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo, Gadu-Gadu (I have no idea ask someone else) and more.
• Double Killer A simple program that scans your hard drive for duplicates. You can save so much disk space by clearing up those double MP3s.

Top Ten Portable Applications