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(Credit: CNET Networks)

As a software reviewer, I download a lot of programs to test them out. Some are great programs deserving of a space on my hard drive while others just are not up to snuff. With all the available software here at CNET Download.com, you’ve probably found a few gems worth keeping, but you’ve inevitably also downloaded a few programs which just didn’t work out. We understand.

On a Windows machine, you can go to the control panel and choose the Add/Remove programs tool to find and uninstall software you don’t want. But on a Mac, it’s not as easy. When you install on a Mac the process usually involves dragging the software into your Applications folder. What you may not know is other files associated with that program are automatically installed into different folders to make the program work properly. So if you simply drag that app icon to the trash, you’re leaving a significant amount of unused files on your hard drive.

Today, we have a group of freshly reviewed apps whose purpose is to extricate those unwanted apps and leftover files from your hard drive. They come in a few different flavors, but all are worthy of checking out if you want to trash that one program once and for all, or if you just need to make space on your hard drive.

AppTrap is less of an app than it is a free System Preference pane. Once set up (you can have AppTrap start at login), all you need to do is exactly what you’ve probably done all along–drag the application to the trash. When you do, AppTrap will ask if you want to delete all associated files. Simply answer yes and you’re done. If you’re looking for the least work to get your Mac apps off your hard drive, AppTrap is your program.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

AppCleaner is a free program that lets you be a little more hands-on than AppTrap. You can drag unwanted apps to the nice-looking interface, or browse through a list of possible apps to uninstall. AppCleaner shows you all the files you will be deleting before your confirmation so make sure to look closely before you pull the trigger.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

AppZapper is a shareware program I’ve talked about before and does a fairly good job, but it will cost you ($12.95). Like AppCleaner you can drag-and-drop apps to the interface to display associated apps. But AppZapper also offers the UnZap command, letting you retrieve previously “zapped” software components from the trash. As an added bonus, you can also have the program search for other trash files on your hard drive with the Genie.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

CleanApp is another shareware alternative with a few extra features than AppZapper, and yet it’s more affordable ($10). CleanApp offers the same drag-and-drop functionality, but also allows you to track all future installations so you can make absolutely sure you delete every file upon uninstallation. CleanApp seems to forever remain in beta, but does a nice job otherwise and might be just the solution you’re looking for.

Not all downloads are good downloads. Unfortunately, when you’re on a Mac, it’s more difficult to completely extract all files associated with unwanted software. Check out our reviews and look at the available features before installing the uninstaller that’s right for you.

If you’re not the type of person to carry around a notepad or voice recorder with you, there are a handful of Web services raring to help you out if you’ve got a mobile phone. ReQall, a service that launched back at Demo 07 has a great new iPhone application that does just that. I got in touch with Sunil Vemuri, ReQall’s chief product officer who showed it off during one of today’s CEO pitch sessions at the AlwaysOn Summit.

The application’s killer feature is that it saves your notes both locally and to the cloud. It also sends these notes to ReQall’s servers without using your voice minutes–that is as long as you can note down everything you want to say within the 30 second allotment. Previously you had to type them in to nix having to make a phone call. Vemuri says the service will transcribe them in just a few minutes, but since launching with the app store a few weeks ago, that time has gone up drastically–leading to some negative reviews. Vemuri told me they’re working to get the time back to just a minute or two.

Another nice feature is the “Memory Jogger,” which will pop up one of your upcoming reminders when you shake your phone in order to get you to start thinking about it ahead of time. It’s fun, silly, and makes use of the device’s accelerometer. I honestly doubt many people are going to use it, except by accident, but it sort of doubles like a flash card tester.

The new application is definitely a step up from the Web version that launched back in early March. It’ll let you swipe back and forth between things noted in time, things, and people categories. One thing that’s missing, though, is integration with the phone’s built-in calendaring tool. This is due to a limitation in Apple’s iPhone SDK, something Vemuri hopes will be changed in later revisions. For now he says a good workaround is to subscribe to the calendar feed provided by ReQall in your Exchange-compatible e-mail client.

Reqall's iPhone app gets around the issue of using your mobile phone minutes to make notes by sending your reminder as an audio file instead.

(Credit: reQall.com / QTech Inc.)

Social-networking savant Flock has announced a re-branded version of its browser aimed at fashionistas. At the very least, it’s aimed at people who like the color pink and lipstick marks on their advertising. Called Gloss, it’s a pink-and-purple themed edition of Flock 1.2 that comes with fashion-related feeds and bookmarks pre-loaded.

The Gloss rebuild of Flock shows the pinker side of browsing.

(Credit: Flock, Inc.)

The list of baked-in feeds for the Windows-only Gloss includes Cosmopolitan, TMZ, Glam.com, PopSugar, and These Boots Are Made for Stalking.

Gloss is getting pimped as a “fun” version of Flock, although I could’ve sworn that Flock received the same PR campaign comparing it to Firefox. Either way, it’s hard to argue with a browser that promotes itself as a place where, “Your friends are always there–just like celebrities in rehab.” It’s hard to argue, of course, because sometimes it’s better to just walk away. Slowly. Beyond having the topical feeds included and the new color scheme, there doesn’t seem to be much of a reason to get Gloss.

Flock itself has also received a couple of upgrades. The Flock 2 beta (download for Windows and Mac) goes up another point, incorporating the Firefox 3.0.1 security patch along with other bug-fixes. The Flock people are promising a lengthy beta cycle, so expect there to be at least one more update.

The official version of Flock (download for Windows and Mac) also gets a bump up, addressing bugs and security holes fixed in Firefox 2.0.0.16. Again, no major roadwork going on here, but it’s definitely a good idea to upgrade to ensure that old exploits don’t cause you grief.

The name Pandora originates in Greek mythology, and it means “all-giving.” It’s an appropriate name for Pandora Recovery, which can give you back files you’ve deleted–even those gone for months.

Now for NTFS and FAT-formatted volumes, Pandora functions by scanning the hard drive and building an index of existing files and deleted file markers. This, in turn, allows the dead files to be brought back to life–as long as the file format is currently supported by the computer. Users can browse for deleted files, search for specific ones, preview certain file types like images, and get an estimate on the chance of recovery and the amount of time the procedure will take.

The program offers a guidance wizard to make sure that you’re able to find deleted files. Pandora cautions you to recover deleted files to a separate drive from the one which they’re being recovered from–sound advice, and the program makes it easy to recover to an external hard disk or portable drive. The interface isn’t anything special, but combines Windows XP Explorer-style navigation with its own toolbar for an effective if uninspired layout.

There’s also a portable version of the program that costs $40.

Squared

Squared is a very simple theme, two columns, widget ready, and valid XHTML 1.0

Simple

A two column colorful theme

Rateka

Two column theme comes widget ready. Custom sidebar ad widgets. Also has 3 color schemes incorporated. Allows you to add subscription by email from admin panel. Easy to manage ads from php file.

Scruffy

Scruffy is a WordPress theme with a standard two column layout and all the basic WP features. What makes this theme special is it’s unique “grunge” design.

Web 2.0 Blue

Great web 2.0 looking, Great use of colors, Simple, Plain, Minimalist theme, Hemingway Style, Can be customized easily through detailed CSS. Support all plugins that Hemingway supports, Huge space for Widget lovers as it is 3 Column theme, Can customize images for blockquotes and so on…

iF

iF is a clean, simple theme with a left sidebar.

FunkyZine

2 Columns, Wood Design, Rounded Corners, Dark, Banner Ad Ready, Tested on WordPress 2.5, Fixed Width, PSD logo Attached.

Here is the proof:

I just got the preview for Backblaze, yet another online backup service. Or to use the current vernacular, cloud storage. It’s a nifty service in that it does but one thing: back up your PC (Macs coming). Setup is so easy my cat could do it: you grab the software, run it, enter in an ID and password, and you’re done.

By default, Backblaze begins to backup your PC in idle times, grabbing everything on your disk except the contents of your system and program directories, and your temp files. There’s no storage or bandwidth limit, and it will store files up to 4GB in size. Backblaze costs $5 a month–quite reasonable.

You can't beat Backblaze's simplicity.

If you want to change the default backup directories or filter out files by type, you can do that in the control panel. You can also change the backup schedule so the app isn’t constantly waiting for idle time to send data. The service, as simple as it is, also gets geek cred for giving users the option to set a private encryption key for their data; if you use this option, even Backblaze won’t be able to recover files if you lose your password. On the other hand, Backblaze can’t access open files, which means it won’t back up your Outlook e-mail unless you remember to close the app. Mozy handles Outlook better.

If you want a highly configurable backup solution, there are plenty of competitive options (Mozy, for instance, or Carbonite, which I use). Backblaze is the backup app you recommend to your mom, or anyone else who should be backing up their computer but is either too scared of the technicalities or too lazy to do the work necessary to make sure the app grabs all the files it needs to.

Backblaze will let users access files they’ve backed up from its Web site, but it is not designed for that. It’s not a sharing or a syncing platform. And I’m not impressed by the restore services. Since the app doesn’t back up your entire PC, you can’t use it to do a bare-metal rebuild of a machine from backup. You can’t even do a restore of all your data over the Web: You can get up to 1GB of data downloaded at a time (in Zip files–not exactly user-friendly), or 4.7GB on a DVD (for a fee), or, in a real catastrophe, up to 160GB on a USB hard drive sent by overnight mail to you (for more of a fee, but not a usurious one).

The service is still in private beta, but you can get access to the trial (15 days free) at https://www.backblaze.com/webware.

Just a week and a half ago WordPress for the iPhone was announced with a pretty killer screencast detailing what you could do with it. Tuesday morning it finally showed up on the app store (download it here), and I’ve had ample time to play with it. The good news is that it’s very enjoyable to use and quite capable for creating posts on the go. The bad news? You’ve got to have an iPhone or iPod Touch to take advantage of it.

The key benefit to using this app is writing and publishing quick posts on the go. What I found after using it, though, is that it offers up far more to the discerning user who wants to use it as a very powerful publishing tool. You can upload photos either from your existing library or snap a quick shot with your phone’s camera. I can see this leading to many food-related photo blogs. Also nice is that whatever you write can be saved on your phone, so you can work on dozens of posts at once and only publish when you want. There’s also a great preview function that will show you what your post will look like without kicking you off to Safari.

I successfully connected two Wordpress.com hosted blogs to the app in just a minute or two, although I ran into problems connecting my personal hosted blog that uses the software install from WordPress.org. It’s worth noting you’ll need version 2.5.1 or higher to hook it up to a hosted blog, although updating to the recently released 2.6 is definitely worth it for all those extra publishing goodies.

Unfortunately there are some serious shortcomings to the iPhone that bring the app down a notch. If you’re used to adding links to your posts there’s not a lot you can do without copy and paste. HTML code is fully supported, so as long as you’re good with your href tagging (which is brutal on the iPhone’s built-in keyboard) you’ll be able to add links from memory just fine.

Another quibble of mine is that drafts created on your computer won’t show up in your post queue on the iPhone app, meaning you won’t be able to start a post on your computer and finish it on the road. Ideally, future revisions will include better shortcuts for adding links and some support for fetching drafts from the cloud.

Hardcore users with a lot of readers will also be pining for some sort of comment management feature in future revisions. As it stands, you’ll have to log in to your WordPress dashboard from Safari and administrate them from there, which isn’t terrible, but it would be far more enjoyable to write and manage in one place.

All in all, it’s off to a great start, and compared to competitor TypePad, which had its app available at the launch of the app store, WordPress is just as full featured and opens up mobile blogging to the millions of WordPress.com and WordPress.org users.

I’ve embedded screenshots and the screencast below.

iTunes needs little in the way of an introduction–especially for Mac users. Apple’s popular media player comes equipped with the capability to play your music, rip CDs, help you buy music from the iTunes Store, and much more. Those with new iPhones (or the latest firmware update) should definitely download this latest version to gain access to Apple’s iPhone App Store.

Check out this First Look video with Download.com’s Jason Parker to find out a little more about iTunes, along with some features and hot-keys experienced users may not already know.

If you’re looking for an Expose emulator to port that cool app-switching feature from the Mac to Windows, DExposE2 is probably about as close as you can get to a direct copy for either Windows XP or Vista. It gives them three choices for jumping between open programs, and it doesn’t slurp up more RAM than it should.

(Credit: Devrexter/DExposE2)

Using the F9 key, you’ll be able to minimize your applications to fit on the screen, then choose one to bring to the front by hitting Tab or left-clicking your mouse. F10 highlights only the active windows belonging to the application currently running in the foreground. F11 reveals the desktop by shunting all active windows off to the right side of your screen, visible only as a thin and unidentifiable bar.

DExposE2 lets you set up other hot keys or move your mouse to the corner of the screen to activate, and there’s also a Windows Taskbar icon you can use to access it’s features–but the hot keys are more than adequate. Other customizations include setting a background image, determining the behavior of previously minimized windows, and customizing program labels. Three levels of graphical quality should allow those with less RAM to scale the program to their needs. Although some crashes have been reported, DExposE2 worked flawlessly for me.