Time for a quick roundup of this week's best downloads.
How to Control Multiple Computers with a Single Keyboard and Mouse
If you have two or more computers at one desk, you don't want two or more sets of keyboards and mice cluttering up your workspace, too. You can buy a hardware gadget that lets you share a single keyboard and mouse with several computers (which involves a mess of tangled wires), or you could use a free software solution called Synergy. The Synergy application runs on all the computers you're using-the one that has the keyboard and mouse connected and the one(s) that do not-and lets you control all of them from that keyboard and mouse.
Power Up Your XBMC Installation with These New Add-Ons
Installing add-ons in the latest version of XBMC is incredibly simple, though it may take an extra step or two depending on whether the add-on is officially supported by XBMC. The first thing you'll want to do is make sure you have the latest version installed (10.0 at the time of this writing). Then, follow these instructions to get add-ons up and running on your system.
YouTube Smart Video Enlarger allows you to set YouTube videos to automatically take up the full frame on load. This makes the video take up your entire browser window by default, similar to what it looks like when you pop-out the video in a new window. The second is that if you scroll down the page, it will automatically resize the video on the fly, down to a minimum (20% by default) so that you can continue watching the video while scrolling down to read comments.
VLC-Shares Streams Any Video to Your Android, AirPlay-Style
Windows/Linux (and Android): Apple's AirPlay tech, set up the right way, flings any video you want to see to any Apple/iOS device you own. Get a similar universal streaming setup for your Android with VLC-Shares.
Custom Tab Width Fits More Tabs in Firefox's Title Bar
Firefox: You can only fit so many tabs in Firefox's tab bar until it makes you scroll through them. With Custom Tab Width, you can change the maximum and minimum tab width and fit more tabs in the tab bar at once.
SpellBook Combines Helpful Bookmarklets into a Right-Click Chrome Menu
Chrome only: Bookmarklets can do wonderful things, but hunting for them might not be your cup of tea. SpellBook combines bookmarklets into a right-click menu you can trigger from any page, so you can Instapaper, Evernote, link-shorten, or otherwise act on helpful stuff.
How to Backup Everything on Your iOS Device Without Jailbreaking
Mac OS X: iTunes backs up your iOS device's settings each time you sync, but it doesn't even come close to backing up the device in its entirety. If you want a complete backup of your device, you can do it easily with an application called PhoneDisk and the wonderful command-line utility rsync.
Windows 7 Service Pack 1 has been released with a ton of bug fixes and security updates for your Windows PC.
Service Pack 1 combines a number of updates and improvements into a single download, so if you haven't been keeping your computer up to date thus far, this one download is a good way to catch up. The download runs around 537 MB for 32-bit users and 903 MB for 64-bit users, and contains a number of bug fixes and security patches.