multiple

Actual Search & Replace allows users to search for and optionally replace words and phrases in ASCII-based documents. Although it seems simple enough to use, we had trouble getting it to function as desired.

The program's interface is basic, and while its core functions--entering the word or phrase you want to search for, for example--are pretty obvious, the program's other options aren't completely intuitive. The program definitely assumes that users will have some familiarity with advanced search functions, including search-related programming syntax. The built-in Help file gives an overview of the program's features, but it doesn'… Read more

Assign Multiple Daily Tasks to 20 People is a set of Excel spreadsheets that let users track availability and schedules for up to 20 employees. Although the program isn't bad for what it is, users should be aware that it is really just an Excel file, not a separate application.

The program's functions are separated into different spreadsheets within an Excel workbook. There are spreadsheets for employee availability, notes, schedules, and contact information. The program is geared toward home health care workers, but would be useful for any business that needs to track employee availability for multiple projects … Read more

The 2009 football season has arrived, and with it the need for somebody in the office to collect everyone's picks in the weekly football pool. Google Docs' forms function makes recording the pigskin prognostications as easy as siding with whoever's playing the Detroit Lions this week.

On the Google Docs main page, click New > Spreadsheet to open a blank worksheet. Click Form > Create a form to open the Edit form dialog. Give the form a name in the top text box. Type "Name" in the Question Title text box, choose Text in the Question … Read more

Hide is an ingenious program that allows users to hide various windows with the press of a button. Unfortunately, the program's unintuitive interface makes some of its features difficult to use, which is a major drawback.

The program's interface is basic, with a box labeled Currently Hidden Windows and another labeled Program Group. It's not immediately clear what a user should do from here, and there's no Help file, but a bit of clicking around reveals that the meat of the program's functions is contained in the Settings. Here, users can set hot keys for … Read more

While its name may conjure up images of animation, Cartoon Maker actually acts as a simple photo editor. While some may be disappointed, it does function well as a quick photo-editing tool.

The program's interface is very simple, allowing users full control with only a few button clicks and limited options. The program's Help file breaks every process down to the bare essentials, allowing users to learn quickly. To create a cartoon, simply bring up a picture by searching via a file tree. Next, users choose a cartoon option from the onscreen menu. The options for Distort and … Read more

Like many PC users, you probably have orphan files in strange, unreadable formats scattered throughout your hard drive. Or maybe you have folders full of files in different formats that you'd like to standardize. Or perhaps the program that once opened certain files is long gone and won't run on your current PC anyway, but you still want to access those files. Able Batch Converter can help. It can convert the formats of large batches of files all at once.

Batch Converter's simple, clear interface makes it a cinch to find files to convert, choose the new … Read more

FoxClocks is an extension that allows users to add clocks in multiple time zones to Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird. The program is easy to use and highly customizable, two characteristics that don't always show up together.

The program's interface is fairly intuitive, although users will find when they try to search for a specific location that the list is somewhat haphazardly organized. Fortunately, if you know what time zone you're looking for, you can customize the way the location displays. For example, we selected Central time in honor of a friend who just moved to Texas, but … Read more

This free program lets you performs searches by category and location. We would have liked to have seen more flexibility with the search categories, but of greater concern were that lack of any results in our test searches.

Kijiji Reader has a simple and pleasant user interface that is easy to navigate. A field for entering your keywords resides at the top, and tree-menus for selecting your search categories and locations reside on the left of the window. While the program offers a decent selection of search categories, you're limited to only those categories. Search locations are limited to … Read more

BusySync is yet another application that will make you say, "Why didn't Apple think of that?" BusySync makes it extremely easy to sync up multiple iCal calendars between different computers on a home or office network, without any need for a central server. BusySync is easy to set up, and users can view and edit shared calendars, instantly and automatically publishing any changes--plus you can simply sync peer-to-peer, between different Macs, or even sync between a combination of individual Macs or calendars hosted on a server.

Even better, BusySync syncs with Google Calendar, too, so that means … Read more