Popular Screen Capture Tool Skitch is now Available for Windows

Skitch by EverNote is one of the most popular screen capture tools for Mac and the good news is that Skitch is now also available for Windows at just the right price – $0.

You can use Skitch for quickly screenshots of anything that’s on your desktop screen and also for annotating your photographs with arrows, colored highlighters and text blocks. You can use the freehand drawing tool to mark areas while the Pixelate tool will help you blur any sensitive parts of an image – like the license plate of your car’s image.

When you done editing an image, you can either upload it directly to EverNote or drag the lower handle in the Skitch program to save that image to your desktop or attach it to your email message.

Head over to evernote.com to grab your free copy of Skitch. In addition to Windows, Skitch is also available as an app for the iOS and Android mobile platform.

Where Can I Download Windows 8 for Testing?

Microsoft today released Windows 8 to the world.

If you have a computer that running either Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7, you may head over to windows.com to buy your own upgrade copy of Windows 8 Pro (Professional) edition for $39.99 (or 1,999 if you are in India). This is an extremely reasonable price and it will stay valid until January, 2013.

Prior to releasing the full version of Windows 8, Microsoft had offered a release preview edition that allowed enthusiasts to evaluate the new software before making the switch. Now that Windows 8 final is available, the release preview edition has been pulled from the Microsoft website.

That said, if you would like to try out Windows 8 before buying the upgrade pack, here’s an easy way. Go to msdn.microsoft.com, scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll find links to download the 90-day trial edition of Windows 8. Microsoft provides these evaluation copies for developers but even consumers can download them for trying Windows 8.

A word of caution though. These are evaluation copies that will expire after 90 days and cannot be upgraded to the final edition. You should therefore create a bootable Windows 8 DVD from the evaluation ISOs and either set them up in a dual-boot environment or, better still, setup a Virtual Machine.

How to Upgrade your Computer to Windows 8

Windows 8 is finally here. I just upgraded my Windows 7 desktop to Windows 8 and the process couldn’t be smoother.

All the existing software programs work just fine in Windows 8 and the built-in Windows Store offers a plethora of new full-screen “apps” to choose from. Desktop search is so much better in Windows 8, the UI feels more snappy and the system will boot faster. You don’t need to install a separate anti-virus program as Windows Defender is already included in Windows 8.

If you haven’t played with the Windows 8 beta versions earlier, it may take a day or two to get comfortable with the new layout but overall, Windows 8 is a must-have upgrade.

Upgrading to Windows 8 – Step by Step

If you are also planning to make the switch to Windows 8 this weekend, here are 3 things you would need:

• A Windows machine running Windows 7, Vista and Windows XP. It doesn’t matter if you have computer is running Windows XP Premium or Windows 7 Home Basic.
• A valid credit card or a PayPal account to pay the upgrade fee – you will be required to pay $39.99 for the Windows 8 Professional edition.
• An internet connection for downloading the Windows 8 installer (2.05 GB). You may also order the Windows 8 installer on a DVD though it may not be necessary as it is quite easy to create your own Windows 8 DVD.

Please note that you are opting for an “upgrade” so it will overwrite your existing copy of Windows and there’s no way you can uninstall Windows 8 to switch to the previous Windows installation.

Also, your existing software programs will only be preserved if you are moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8. If your current PC is running Windows XP or Vista, all your files and data will be preserved but you will have to reinstall the software apps after upgrading to Windows 8.

Ready? Here’s how may upgrade your computer to Windows 8.

First download and run the Upgrade Assistant program. This will essentially perform a few checks on your computer and will also suggest a list of software programs / hardware devices that may not be compatible with Windows 8.

Next you need to order your Windows 8 upgrade pack right inside the installation wizard. Choose the “Checkout” option, enter your Credit Card details and the next screen will show your Windows 8 product key that you may need at the time of installation. You don’t have to write then down on paper and Microsoft will also send a receipt of your order and the Windows serial number to your email address.

Important: What you are buying is the upgrade license that will only work on an existing Windows machine. You cannot use this Windows 8 license on a new machine that you could be building from scratch. If you wish to install Windows 8 from scratch on a new hard disk, you need the System Builder that may not be available at all locations.

The upgrade assistant will now download the Windows 8 installer files to your computer. This process may take a while since it will require the transfer of ~2 GB of data from Microsoft servers to your disk.

Tip: The Windows 8 installer files are stored in the C:\ESD\Windows\Sources folder – it’s hidden so you may not find it inside Windows Explorer.

Once the installer files have been downloaded, you can continue with the installation or you may pick the second option that says – “Install by creating media.”  Here you can save the Windows 8 installer files in a single ISO file and then, from the wizard itself, burn the ISO image into a bootable DVD. This may come handy later when you want to repair or reinstall Windows 8 later but have deleted the installer from the disk to free up disk space.

Once the DVD is ready, double-click the Windows Setup shortcut (you’ll find it on your desktop) to run the setup again.

You can either do a clean install and choose “Nothing” or use the “Windows settings, personal files and apps” option to preserve your files as well as programs (recommended).  Also, if you choose “Nothing,” your personal files (anything saved inside the User folder and on the desktop) will be moved to a windows.old folder.

Choose the first “Install Now” option and Windows 8 will finish installing itself. Simple!

Download the Evernote Bible for Free Today!

Whether you are an experienced Evernote user or a newbie who is just trying to make sense of the various features available inside Evernote, here’s something useful for you.

The Evernote Bible is a $9.99 ebook loaded with tips on how you can use the Evernote software more effectively. It discusses the various scenarios where you can use Evernote, how you can perform advanced searches, how to automate Evernote with IFTTT, and encryption among other things.

My favorite part though is at the end where the author shares 99 creative uses of Evernote. For instance, since Evernote can encrypt text, you can also consider using the software as an online Password manager.

The Evernote bible is available as a free download on Amazon today. You can read it on your computer, mobile phone or the Kindle, if you have one.

Battle of the Windows 8 Start Buttons

If the absence of a Start Menu button is keeping you from upgrading to Windows 8, you are in luck. There are tools available that will put the Start Menu into your Windows 8 desktop and these buttons don’t just have a familiar look-and-feel but they also mimic the functionality of the original Windows Start Menu.

I tried about half a dozen Start buttons for Windows 8 from various developers and here are some recommendations on which ones you may use and which ones you should avoid.

Win8StartButton brings the best of both worlds. It adds a Start Menu button to your Windows 8 desktop but the layout is more like a compressed version of the Start Screen of Windows 8. When you open the Start Menu, the search box stays in focus so you can even type a few characters to quickly open any software program.

I really liked this program (it makes you familiar with the start screen) but the only issue is that some of the options are written in German.

Start8 by Stardock is “the” best Start Menu alternative for Windows 8. It offers a polished and beautiful layout with support for search and one-click access to your My Documents, Pictures and other common folders.

Also, if you aren’t a huge fan of the new tiles based Start Screen of Windows 8, you can configure Start8 such that it will boot your computer directly into the Desktop mode. A single user license is $5 though a 30-day trial is available.

Start Is Back is a still-in-development Start Menu button that looks very promising. You can customize the layout of the Start Button (including the Windows orb), there’s an option to boot directly into the desktop mode and you can even choose to completely disable the menus that appear when you hover your mouse in the corners of your Windows 8 desktop.

Start Is Back is free at this time but that will change once it is out of beta.

I also tested the Vi Orb Start Button and while it is an impressive clone of the Windows 7 menu, the software will add useless Registry Cleaner programs to your computer and may therefore be avoided.

Classic Shell was originally created to bring the Windows XP style classic menu to users who were confused with the new Start Menu designs of Windows Vista and Windows 7 (isn’t that a familiar story). The menu has since then been updated to support Windows 8.

In addition to the regular desktop-based programs, you can also use the Classic Shell to directly access the modern (Metro) apps from the Start Menu itself. The programs is free and much reliable as it has been around for a very long time.

To conclude, the $5 Start8 button from Stardock is your best bet or go with Classic Shell Menu if you are looking for a free alternative. That said, if you are new to Windows 8, play around with the system for about a week and you won’t really feel the need to have a Start Button as long as you have a dedicated Windows button on your keyboard.