Even though it's an old app, Google Talk continues to be a really popular app. It's no wonder - it's reliable, easy to use and much simpler than some of the more flashy IMs out there. If you're just getting started with the app, or you have a few doubts, we've answered the top questions about Google Talk below. Take a look...

How to sign up

This couldn't be easier. You need a Google Account, which you can get here. If you have an email address that ends with gmail.com, googlemail.com or you've got a personalized Google domain, then you don't need to do anything - your login details are also your Google Talk login information.

Then, download and install the Google Talk desktop client. The installation process is very easy, and when you see the login screen appear, just enter the login details mentioned above. That's it! As soon as you see the main interface appear, you're free to start chatting!

Copy and paste is one of the most-used functions in Microsoft Word. In Word 2010, though, there’s a function called the Spike that might be even more useful for moving text and pictures around a document.

The Spike is an extended clipboard feature of Word 2010. It allows you to remove two or more items from different parts of a document and reinsert them as a group in a new location in the document.

This can be very handy for editing large documents, piecing together research projects, arranging agendas, compiling reports and more.

Before iOS 5, I had no problems connecting my iPod Touch 3rd Gen or iPad 1 and 2 to my computer. Since iTunes 10.5, it sometimes didn't recognize my pair of iPads sometimes, they did't load in Windows 7, or a combination of both.

iTunes Wifi sync only gives you 5GB of storage, so isn't a good sync solution if you have lots of music or video. I looked through one of Apple's support pages and found that this didn't solve the problem. The second support page solution also led to a dead end.

If you have tried Apple's support pages and iTunes still doesn't recognize your device, the solution is to run a registry cleaner like CCleaner.

KMPlayer is one of the most powerful video players for Windows. The multimedia application has a huge range of settings that help you customize your entertainment experience.

One neat trick with KMPlayer is to watch multiple videos at the same time with picture-in-picture viewing. Rather than just having different player windows open, this feature embeds smaller videos over the top of a large one.

So if you don’t have time to watch four movies in one night, just watch them all at the same time using KMPlayer!

Watch the video tutorial or follow the steps below to enable picture-in-picture viewing in KMPlayer.

1. Download KMPlayer from Softonic and install it on your PC. Open the player and right click on the main window. Choose Options, then Preferences.

2. In the General Settings section of the Preferences menus, deselect Disallow Multiple Instances.

3. Load up your first video. This will become the one that appears in the background.

4. Pause the movie and right click on it. Go the Screen Controls option, choose On Top, then Never.

5. Open another video in a new window. Right click on this one and go to Screen Controls. Choose On Top, then Always.

6. Right-click on the video window and choose Skins, then Default Control (Auto Hide).

7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for all of the videos you want to load.

8. Now maximize the first video to full screen and position all the other videos in front of it, resizing the windows as necessary.

9. You’re now ready to start enjoying the benefits of picture-in-picture viewing with KMPlayer!

Need to take a screenshot of a video? One of the simplest ways to do it is with UMPlayer, an excellent media player that’s a worthy alternative to the popular VLC Player.

Whether you have a movie review web site and want to take some stills of a new film, or you just want a shot of your favorite movie to set as your desktop background, UMPlayer makes it dead simple.

Install UMPlayer

First, download UMPlayer from Softonic and install it on your PC. Launch the application and load a movie by dragging the file into the main interface or choose File from the Open menu.

Capture a screenshot

Go to the point of the movie you want to capture and press pause to freeze it. Now go to the Video menu, and you’ll find two screenshot options here. Select Screenshot to take a grab of what’s currently on screen, or choose Start/stop taking screenshots and UMPlayer will keep taking shots of the screen as the movie plays. Then choose this option again (or hit Shift + D) to stop the capture process.

Change output options

To find out where your screenshots have been saved go to the Options menu and select Preferences. On the General tab of the General options (which should load as the default menu) you’ll see a section called Screenshots. Here, you can change the destination folder of the saved screenshots, and enable/disable UMPlayer’s screenshot functionality.

Hiding your IP address while you're browsing the internet is a good move for anyone wanting an additional level of privacy online.

UltraSurf is a simple tool that's perfect for doing this when you're using Internet Explorer. It will help ensure security while you're shopping or banking by encrypting your personal information - your IP address gives information about you to third parties. UltraSurf is a great portable tool for people who don't want third parties to be able to view this information, as well as those who want to access websites that are blocked in their locale.

If you prefer Firefox to Internet Explorer, though, there's an add-on just for you. It's called UltraSurf Firefox Tool.

All you have to do to use UltraSurf on Firefox is download both UltraSurf and the add-on for Firefox. If you're currently running Firefox, you may need to restart befure UltraSurf will work.

Besides being able to hide your IP from third parties, UltraSurf can also automatically delete cookies and browser history every time you close it, an extra level of security that users are sure to appreciate.

Not sure how to add subtitles to videos you play in VLC media player? It's simple once you know how! Here's a step by step guide:

1. Download a subtitle file for your movie - if your source was a DVD or Blu-ray, make sure to search for a subtitle file for that type to ensure good audio/subtitle syncing. Generally speaking, look for a subtitle with a file name that closely resembles the video file you want to play. The most common file type for subtitles is .srt (we will deal with creating subtitles another time). AllSubs.org is a good resource for subtitle files
2. Move the subtitle file into the same folder as your video file.
3. Rename the subtitle file with exactly the same name as your video file, so you have two files like this: examplevideo.avi and examplevideo.srt.
4. Play your video in VLC. You should now see subtitles appear over your movie. If you don't, double check the .srt file is correctly named, then close and restart VLC before playing again.

This process is the same on both Windows and Mac versions of VLC player.

Apple have just launched iTunes Match but what is it exactly? In a nutshell, it's basically part of iCloud and makes it possible to access your iTunes collection from anywhere with iTunes 5.1 or higher. This also provides a handy backup of your music if anything happens to your PC, Mac or iPhone.

In addition, iTunes Match can clean your iTunes library by replacing those tracks obtained from outside the iTunes store with official iTunes store versions. This is useful for example if you have lots of ripped CD's or music downloaded from other sites that either aren't labelled very well or are of poor sound quality. iTunes Match will replace poor quality tracks with 256kbps versions.

iTunes Match isn't a free service. It costs $24.99 a year which isn't bad if you're a heavy iTunes user on multiple devices with a rather disorganized music collection.

Note that once you've uploaded your iTunes collection, you can stream it to your Apple devices in the same way as you can with Spotify. There's also a 25,000 track limit although those you have purchased via iTunes don't count towards this total.

The initial scanning and uploading process can take quite a long time especially if you've got a large iTunes library. Once a song is uploaded, a cloud symbol will appear next to it to let you know it's done.

For Spotify users, iTunes Match isn't really offering anything new but for those that rely on iTunes a lot, it's a practical service.

Nokia's Symbian Anna update has improved functionality on the Nokia E7, Nokia N8, Nokia C7, and Nokia C6-01 phones. With the update also preloaded on the Nokia X7 and Nokia E6, Symbian Anna is already widely installed in the Symbian market.

Unfortunately, this update has left users unable to install Java applications! If you've had this problem, don't worry, it's easy to solve. Read on for the solution:

The error reads: Installation failed – internal error: Jsr plugin com.nokia.mj.jmpl.chapi.core.utils.ServiceProviderInstaller cancelled installation.

To fix this, simply download the fix and install it on your device. Java programs will now install as usual again!

Recently I explained how to install mods in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, so you can alter various aspects of what many people are calling the game of 2011. Now, here are five of my favorite mods for Skyrim:

4GB Skyrim

It's a bit boring, but if you have a powerful gaming PC with 64-bit Windows 7, this allows the game to take advantage of the entire 4GB Virtual Memory Address Space. This will reduce instances of slowdown in the game when things get busy. Great! Download here

World Map in full 3D

This mod changes the in game map so you can zoom right in, almost to ground level, easily exploring without having to actually walk around! The file page has instructions for use, with some advice for making some personalizations, like adding clouds. Download here

Realistic Water Textures

I love this - it divides the water in Skyrim into categories: puddles, rivers, oceans. While oceans and rivers are subtly improved, the puddle category really give marshland a more realistic feel. Water in marshes is now much stiller and marsh-like. Download here

No More Blocky Faces

Even though I think 'blocky' is a bit of an exaggeration, this mod does smooth out some features to make faces look more realistic. It's a small thing, but I like the overall effect, and you spend quite a lot of time looking at faces in the game. Download here

Skyrim Sunglare V3

This mod gives the sun a cinematic glare and occasional 'lens flare' effect. No performance improvement, and it's not more realistic. But it's very attractive! Download here

[adapted from OnSoftware Netherlands]

Minecraft has spawned a huge community of developers making all kinds of complimentary Minecraft programs. Here is my pick of the best, and most useful Minecraft tools available today:

• Minecraft Crafting Guide. This is a neat little app, an encyclopedia of crafting. Newcomers to Minecraft will find the concept of crafting difficult, and in 'survival mode', you don't have time to mess around experimenting with recipes! This is a comprehensive guide to how to make everything in the game, from food to weaponry to portals to another dimension!

• Mineviewer. Has hours of mining not got you the minerals or resources you were looking for? Load your world into this app and you can zoom around, and see exactly where rarer things like diamond are hiding. Then you can mine straight to what you need in Minecraft.

• MCEdit. Like Mineviewer, this app lets you see and explore your Minecraft world, but also lets you edit it. It's easy to use, and allows you to make some enormous changes in seconds! I made a ball of TNT so big it crashed the game - so be warned!

• MCPatcher. Minecraft is constantly being updated, but if you find you want to play an older version, MCPatcher makes it easy. It features a library of past versions, and allows you to backup your current games, so you don't have to worry about losing any progress!

What Minecraft applications do you use? Or do you think this is all cheating?

Do you want to improve or change Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on PC? Here's how to install a mod in Bethesda's huge role-playing epic:

1: Choose your mod and download it. There are tons of mods on offer; for this guide example I'm going to install an enhanced night sky, called Enhanced Night Skyrim. This adds an attractive colored galaxy effect at night. You can find a range of Mods at Skyrimnexus, and a good selection here at Softonic too.

2: Unzip, or expand your file. Almost all mods are offered in compressed form, either ZIP or RAR files. We use free app IZArc to decompress files. To open a compressed file, simply right click, and choose 'Open with IZArc'. Open the target folder and leave it.

3: Open your Skyrim folder. You have to move your mods in here, so lets find it now. Open Windows Explorer, double click your hard drive (C:), then open the folder Program Files (x86), then Steam, then steamapps, then common, then skyrim.

4: Move your mod file. Finally, we're here! Now, simply drag the mod folder  - in this case it's called textures - into the folder called 'Data' in skyrim. That's it! When you next run Skyrim, you'll see your mod has taken effect!

There are more ways to browse and watch YouTube videos than you might expect!

YouTube is working hard to offer people fun new ways to enjoy its huge selection of videos. The site now includes a range of different features designed to help you discover great videos, and watch and interact with them in new and interesting ways.

Check out YouTube’s TestTube section, which the site describes as its “ideas incubator”. Here’s where the site tries out all its weird and wonderful new features, and there are some real gems in here. Here are my favorite YouTube secrets that you just have to try!

Cosmic Panda

Also billed as the ‘Channels and Watch Experiment’, Cosmic Panda is a completely redesigned version of YouTube. It aims to make it easier to find, watch and highlight new or interesting content.

With winter fast approaching, Google Street View has started to add snow covered Ski resorts to the locations you can visit in Google Maps. All the current locations are from resorts in the US and Canada, and allow you to explore some famous ski slopes without fear of breaking anything.

What is missing from these Street View ski resorts is some direction - movement doesn't look quite as slick as in urban settings, because it's not easy to see which direction you should be going! Nevertheless, there are some great images here, and it means you can get a good idea of what to expect if you take a holiday there. Here's hoping Google adds some more worldwide resorts, too.

You can view everything from the Google Street View ski resorts gallery, as well as a collection of some of the more unusual places they have photoed.

If you've always wanted to learn the piano but don't want to invest in a real keyboard, you can always turn your PC keyboard into a Piano! It's not ideal, but also not a bad way of playing simple melodies on your PC. MidiPiano is the neatest Windows app I've found for this.

MidiPiano has two windows, the keyboard with controls, and a piano roll into which you can upload midi files. When you record yourself playing, it's recorded here too, in midi format.

How to use MidiPiano

I've played a real piano a couple of times, and using a qwerty keyboard is a bit awkward in comparison! The layout runs the white keys along four rows: starting at the bottom with the Z to M keys, then continuing with A to L, Q to P and then 1 to 0.

The cursor keys, and numpad also let you run further up the keyboard, but it's much more comfortable sticking to the four first rows. Black keys can be found by using Ctrl plus any other key. Holding shift allows you to play one note with the octave above at the same time. The record feature helpfully starts when you play your first note, and the midi file will finish with your last.

MidiPiano is free, and doesn't require installation. Check out my review and download MidiPiano here.