Citrus Alarm Clock stops you from going late for work

Citrus alarm clock is an alarm clock for Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP and Vista (vista support by a beta release), it uses your media player to wake you up everyday,citrus alarm clock is great freebie,be thankful for it.

Citrus Alarm Clock Features

• Set as many different alarms as you'd like
• Uses your existing media player
• MP3, WMA, and any other media types are supported as long as you have the right media player installed
• Fade in alarm audio for relaxed awakening (this really works!)
• Mute audio overnight until alarm time
• Easy to use and free

Update: Citrus Alarm Clock is no longer free. Another free program has fallen prey to the clutches of the payed software.

Get it at http://www.ornj.net/citrus/

Frontmotion login spices up your windows logons

Frontmotion login changes your boring normal logon with flashy animated graphics, its awesome because it requires no extra system resources or dll hacking plus it supports user made logons.

Features

• User reconfigurable logon interface
• Interactive Macromedia Flash Themes
• Remote Desktop support in Windows XP and Terminal Services support.
• Fast User Switching support in Windows XP (Standalone and Domain Mode)
• Configurable Windows 2000 or Windows XP security behavior (Runs Task Manager on Ctrl-Alt-Del)
• Screen Rotation support
• Windows XP Password Reset Wizard support.
• No DLL hacking required. Safe even after Service Pack upgrades.
• Built-in 'recovery mode'.

Benefits

• System Branding
• Combine with Flash Remoting to present dynamic information

Active Directory Support

• MSI remote deployment using AD
• Security Policy (GPO) support
• User setting override

front motion login is a free download for Windows NT, 2000 and Windows XP

get it at http://www.frontmotion.com/FMLogin/index.htm

Avira UnErase Personal lets you um..unerase stuff

Avira UnErase Personal lets you recover deleted files like the previously featured recovery software recuva, Avira UnErase Personal works on windows.

get it at http://www.free-av.com/en/tools/10/avira_unerase_personal.html

Gspot lets you know which codecs are needed to play a video file

Gspot lets you know which codecs are needed to play a video file, is an awesome utility if you keep downloading videos and need to know more info about them,Gspot is available for windows.

get it at http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

IM your friends with Trillian

Trillian is a chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC, it provides extra features that are not found on the original clients like audio chat,file transfers,chat rooms buddy icons,etc. Trillian is a free download for windows.

get it at http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/

Rearrange your tasbar with Taskbar Shuffle

Taskbar shuffle lets you arrange the windows taskbar by drag`n drop, it also lets you do the same for the system tray via a hotkey, Taskbar Shuffle is a lightweight download for windows.




get it at http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm

Test any app securely with Sandboxie

Sandboxie lets you run any program in a way so that it doesn`t interact with your data or settings, for example you could run your browser in sandboxie and any toolbar,malware,adware that gets installed why using it becomes trapped in sandboxie!,of course this make it a great tool for when you like to check something dangerous inside your computer without all the risk involved.

get it at http://www.sandboxie.com/

VirtualBox lets you have virtual machines on your computer

VirtualBox is an open source virtualization program that lets you have several virtual machines on your computer, so for example you could run linux under windows!,virtualbox is easy to use and is available for windows,linux and MacOSx.

get it at http://www.virtualbox.org/

Make your sure your data is really erased with Eraser

did you know when you delete something in windows is not really erased? even tough it never passed trought the recycle bin?, the data just sits there untils it the hard disk writes over it,therefore if you have important stuff you don`t want anyone to see you gotta use Eraser,it securely deletes your data by writing over it several times, it has a scheduler and a nuke boot disk that installs a file in a floppy disk so that when a PC boots with it erases the hard disk, all in all an awesome utility,use it.

get it at http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

Monitor your computer with SpeedFan

Speedfan lets you check your computer`s voltage,fan speed and temperatures, you can modify these values too using the tools available but be careful and know what you are doing otherwise you can burn your computer,speedfan is a great download for those people that like to tweak and know everything about their PC.


get it at http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Hide your porn with Free Hide Folder

if you got lots of porn in your computer (most likely you do) or other sensitive material that you would not want to be discovered by your little brother, free hide folder is a simple choice, after you have place a password you can hide any folder on your disk so that it cannot be seen,altered,or erased by your boss,wife,child. this is a faster choice than to encrypt the files and easier for not so experienced people. a great utility that can be used by all.

Key Features:

• Hide your folder completely. Unless you unhide it yourself, nobody can find it.
• Password protection when running program.
• No file system structure modifications needed.
• Any number of folders may be hidden at the same time.
• Easy-to-use user interface.

get it at http://www.cleanersoft.com/hidefolder/free_hide_folder.htm

Make picture animations from videos with Microsoft gif animator

Microsoft gif animator is a very basic tool that allows you to make gifs from images or avi files,if you ever thought of making a funny animation from a cool video without complications Microsoft gif animator is a good choice.

get the setup file or stand alone exe from http://www.jhepple.com/gif_animator.htm

Recover lost settings from the window`s registry with Direct Registry Browser

if you ever had windows crashed and lost settings because of it direct registry browser can help, it can recover keys,settings,profiles,etc. directly from the registry, you can analize or import the data to your current registry, a useful tool.


get it at http://www.sysdevsoftware.com/soft/dreg.php

Remind yourself things with Stickies

Stickies is a windows program that works just like real life stickies,stickies are used to remind you of things that need your attention, like a to do list, pick up the children from school,defrag your hard drive,Etc. stickies has a bunch of features like skins,sending stickies trought the internet,alarm options and much more,Stickies is a great program that can be used by everyone, a definitive recommendation.

Main features:

• Once on screen, stickies will remain where placed until closed, even through reboots
• Stickies appearance can be customised; fonts, colours and buttons may be changed, and styles saved. Stickies can be resized.
• Stickies can snap to each other and to the sides of the screen to keep them neatly lined up
• Stickies can be attached to a web site, document or folder so they only show when it's on screen
• Stickies can be transferred from one machine to another either over a TCP/IP network connection, or by using an SMTP mail server or MAPI client:
  • Hierarchical friends list, which may be automatically transferred from other friends
  • Play a sound file on receive
  • Signature for transmitted or emailed stickies
  • Favourite friends, and custom lists can be made
• Stickies can be hidden for a certain period, until a specified date and time, or to wake every day, week or month, to act as reminders.
• Stickies can have alarms set to ensure you notice them at a point you choose
• Stickies can be transferred to and from your Palm or PPC PDA.
• International language support
• Stickies works with Windows Vista
• Stickies is small and simple, it writes to a single text file, and does not alter the registry
• AD network administrators can use Group Policy to control settings
• ...and Stickies is completely free!

get it at http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/index.html

browse your images with IrfanView

IrfanView is a lightweight image viewer for windows,it works very well..if you don`t mind that it is very ugly,personally i like that my applications look good, does that make me vain?,probably,but yeah irfanview is still awesome,check it out.


Some IrfanView features:

• Many supported file formats (click here the list of formats)
• Multi language support
• Thumbnail/preview option
• Paint option - to draw lines, circles, arrows, straighten image etc.
• Toolbar skins option
• Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD)
• Show EXIF/IPTC/Comment text in Slideshow/Fullscreen etc.
• Support for Adobe Photoshop Filters
• Fast directory view (moving through directory)
• Batch conversion (with image processing)
• Multipage TIF editing
• File search
• Email option
• Multimedia player
• Print option
• Support for embedded color profiles in JPG/TIF
• Change color depth
• Scan (batch scan) support
• Cut/crop
• IPTC editing
• Effects (Sharpen, Blur, Adobe 8BF, Filter Factory, Filters Unlimited, etc.)
• Capturing
• Extract icons from EXE/DLL/ICLs
• Lossless JPG rotation
• Many hotkeys
• Many command line options
• Many PlugIns
• Only one EXE-File, no DLLs, no Shareware messages like "I Agree" or "Evaluation expired"
• No registry changes without user action/permission!
• and much much more

get it at http://www.irfanview.com/

Burn and create CD / DVD / HD DVD / images with ImgBurn

ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit!

It has several 'Modes', each one for performing a different task:

• Read - Read a disc to an image file
• Build - Create an image file from files on your computer or network - or you can write the files directly to a disc
• Write - Write an image file to a disc
• Verify - Check a disc is 100% readable. Optionally, you can also have ImgBurn compare it against a given image file to ensure the actual data is correct
• Discovery - Put your drive / media to the test! Used in combination with DVDInfoPro, you can check the quality of the burns your drive is producing

get it at http://www.imgburn.com/

Launch your files with a stroke using Launchy

Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.

Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

get it at http://www.launchy.net/

MP3Gain lets you normalize the volume of your mp3 files

MP3Gain analyzes and adjusts mp3 files so that they have the same volume,its works on windows.

get it at http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

btw...

Thanks to the 3 people who are subscribed to my feed!, i wonder who you are.....

Tag your mp3`s with MP3Tag

MP3Tag is a donationware mp3 tagger.

Mp3tag supports the following audio formats:

* Advanced Audio Coding (aac)
* Free Lossless Audio Codec (flac)
* Monkey's Audio (ape)
* Mpeg Layer 3 (mp3)
* MPEG-4 (mp4 / m4a / m4b / iTunes compatible)
* Musepack (mpc)
* Ogg Vorbis (ogg)
* OptimFROG (ofr)
* OptimFROG DualStream (ofs)
* Speex (spx)
* Tom's Audio Kompressor (tak)
* True Audio (tta)
* Windows Media Audio (wma)
* WavPack (wv)

It Main features are:

• Write ID3v1.1-, ID3v2-, APEv2-Tags and Vorbis Comments to multiple files at once
• Full Unicode support
• Support for embedded cover art
• Automatically create playlists
• Recursive subfolders support
• Remove parts or the entire tag of multiple files
• Rename files based on the tag information
• Import tags from filenames
• Format tags and filenames
• Replace characters or words from tags and filenames
• Regular Expressions
• Export tag information to user-defined formats (like html, rtf, csv, xml)
• Import tag information from online databases like freedb or Amazon (also by text-search)
• Import tag information from local freedb databases
• Support for ID3v2.3 (ISO-8859-1 and UTF-16) and ID3v2.4 with UTF-8
• and much more ...

get it at http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

RocketDock

RocketDock is a free application launcher for windows 2000/XP/Vista,its low on system resources and it has the following features:

• Minimize windows to the dock
• Real-time window previews in Vista
• Running application indicators
• Simple drag-n-drop interface
• Multi-monitor support
• Supports alpha-blended PNG and ICO icons
• Icons zoom and transition smoothly
• Auto-hide and Popup on mouse over
• Positioning and layering options
• Fully customizable
• Completely Portable
• ObjectDock Docklet support
• Compatible with MobyDock, ObjectDock, RK Launcher, and Y'z Dock skins
• Runs great on slower computers
• Unicode compliant
• Supports many languages and can easily be translated
• A friendly user base :)
• And best of all... its FREE!!!

RocketDock requires:

• Windows 2000/XP/Vista
• 500Mhz or faster CPU
• 10MB RAM free

Get it at http://rocketdock.com/

Monitor your bandwidth with Freemeter

Freemeter is an open source bandwidth monitor for windows,its main features are a Desktop and Systray graph,Configurable connection speed, update interval, color, transparency. Monitor any or all network interfaces. Ping/Trace/UPnP utilities. Email notifier (POP/IMAP). Requires .NET 2.0. Freemeter is very simple and useful.

get it at http://sourceforge.net/projects/freemeter/

Top 5 Video players

5-Zoom player

Zoom player plays audio and video files,it can play any type of file available as long you download and install the right filters,it is highly customisable ,you can change aspect ratio,zooming, colour,brightness,gamma,sync. these adjustments can be made on the fly,because of this features an expert user will get more out of the program that just your average joe.it is very popular among home teather owners.Zoom player works on Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/XP64/Vista64

4-VLC

VLC Media Player can too play audio and video files,it is open source,it main features are the ability to play uncompleted files that still downloading,access .iso files so that you can play files on a disk image,extensive filters,play High-definition recordings of D-VHS tapes,use a firewire connection to stream content to a monitor or HDTV,It can display the playing video as the desktop wallpaper,on windows ity can use third pary dll`s, plus it supports most operating sytems.

3-BSPlayer 1.37.826 (Last free version)

BSPlayer can play most media files as long they are installed before hand,its multilingual,it has bookmark support,Remote control support,Playlist support,AVI files with more than 2 audio streams supported (multilanguage) and many more features, it is my personal favorite but..this is the last true free version,the newer free versions require the installation of an adware that must be installed for BSPlayer to work and therefore versions 1.38 and above suck.BSPlayer works on all windows versions.

2-SMPlayer

SMPlayer is a Front-end for open source MPlayer,it has all the basic features like playing videos,DVDs and a special feature that saves the settings of all the files you play.it has multilanguage support,mouse wheel seeking,audio and subtitle delay adjustment,multiple speed playback,Etc. SMPlayer works on windows and linux.

1-GOM Player

GOM Player is probably the best free media player available for windows,it can play the most popular formats as it is and if it can`t it will look for the codec online and allow you download it and install it,it can play AVI files that are being downloaded or are broken,in addition to most of the features found in other video players,GOM player has simple interface and uncomplicated controls that can be used by anyone,an awesome player. GOM player works on windows only.

Know your Windows Processes with ProcessScanner

ProcessScanner is an awesome program that is very helpfull if you suspect you computer has a virus,malware or other thing that is not suppossed to be running,basically it scans your windows Processes and explains online which process is insecure or unknow,if it is from windows or other manufacterer,if it has a high or low memory usage and if its using the network.with all of this data you will have a good idea if your system is compromised or not. ProcessScanner is a free offering from Uniblue Systems.

get it at :http://www.processlibrary.com/processscan/

PDF-XCHANGE VIEWER

PDF-XCHANGE VIEWER is a PDF viewer that can be used as a replacement for the slow and bloated official PDF viewer from adobe, unlike adobe reader PDF-XChange starts real fast on slow systems,plus it has an auto updater.


In addition to all the standard features here are some of the features available in the PDF-XChange FREE Viewer

• Add Comments and Annotations to any PDF file (subject to security settings) - unlilke the Adobe Viewer which requires the PDF creation tool to be 'certified' by Adobe !
• Markup pages with text and objects
• Type directly on any PDF page, not just Adobe enabled forms documents - in Typewriter mode.
• Export PDF pages or entire files to any one of the supported Image formats including BMP, JPEG, TIFF, PNG and many more ...
• Extract text from a PDF page/File
• Make your navigation of large or complex PDF files both simple and enjoyable swith the extended functionality of our 'Loupe' and the 'Pan' Window tools
• Fill and Save Adobe Forms to disk, email or 'post' !
• Full Javascript Engine included
• Updated JPEG2000 Compression support - improving speed.

And many more features such as Rotate and 'Save', Email files etc ...


Get it at: http://www.docu-track.com/home/prod_user/PDF-XChange_Tools/pdfx_viewer

Handle CD/DVD images with MagicDisk

MagicDisk allows you to have up to 15 virtual drives for you to load you CD images in,it supports most type of images, plus you can make your own images with a single click and compress/uncompress them,MagicDisk is a lightweight utility that can save you a lot time by saving your favorite games in your computer instead of swapping DVD`s everytime you want to play them, for its greatness it only has one bad thing, after you install it will start every time you load up windows and you can`t disable that unless you use an outside utility like StartupCLP, even so its an awesome free program from the makers of MagicISO.

Get it at: http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-overview.htm

Keep your music organized with MediaMonkey

Media monkey its a media player similar to itunes, it has an audio ripper,file type converter,a searchable media library, tagging and autotagging,organizing music by tags, synchronization with Apple`s Ipod,Iriver,Creative Zen,usb devices and skin support.
MediaMonkey is very easy to use,you can use it for just playing music or for people that like their music organized it includes tagging and a media library plus it has extra funcionality with plugins and skins,a definitive recommendation.

get it at: http://www.mediamonkey.com/

Check for new mail with firefox extension Webmail notifier

if you have several email accounts from yahoo,hotmail,gmail,etc, webmail notifier can be really helpful,after you have setup all your accounts it checks after a designated time for new mail and lets you know by either an alert or a custom sound.Webmail notifier is simple to use and it just works, one of my favorite extensions.

Webmail notifier supports the following emails:

- mail.google.com(Gmail)
- mail.yahoo.com
- mail.live.com(Hotmail)
- www.daum.net(hanmail)
- www.naver.com
- www.empas.com
- www.nate.com

Below sites are supported by user script.
- mail.qq.com
- www.fastmail.fm
- www.gmx.net
- mail.lycos.com
- www.orkut.com
- freemail.web.de
- poczta.fm(poczta.interia.pl)

get it at: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4490

Tweak Windows XP with Tweak UI

Tweak UI gives you access to the system settings that are not exposed by default and are difficult to change, like turning off eye candy,mouse settings,taskbar settings,disable autoplay,Etc. its very useful if you would to change window XP`s settings without going in to the registry.

get it here.

Clean your PC with CCleaner

After you use your computer for awhile crap starts to accumulate in it, cookies,unused and temporary files,etc. with CCleaner you can do a whole scan of your hard drive to find such files and erase them allowing windows to run much faster,it can also scan your registry files to look for unused entries like when you uninstall an application or delete a program in the start menu. in addition it has a security feature that ensures that you cannot delete any useful information or important documents, clearly if you like having your computer clean you have to get CCleaner.

get it at: http://ccleaner.com/

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Recover deleted files with Recuva

You can recover deleted files with free recover utility Recuva,after you install it just scan your PC and it will show a list of your deleted files, just select one or multiple files and then just click recover.

get it at: http://www.recuva.com/

Crack your windows passwords with Ophcrack

have you ever forgotten your windows password?, wished you have another choice other than backup your data and reformatting?, if so ophcrack can help you, ophcrack can crack windows passwords using rainbow tables, it can recover 99.9 % of passwords in seconds, it can be run from windows,linux or MacOS X or booted from a live CD,it can even crack passwors of windows vista.

download at: http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/

Top 5 free anti-virus for windows

if you are running windows lets face it, you need an antivirus,otherwise your computer goes to hell,but most people don´t have the money to pay for an antivirus or won´t, so here are the best 5 free antivirus out there.

1-Avast!


Avast ! offers different levels of protection de pending of what you need, it can scan P2P downloads,outlook mail, internet mail and instant messenger conversations,avast has the useful Virus Recovery Database feature that restores infected files to their previous state by creating a database of files that can be set when the avast screensaver is running. plus it has password protection of the antivirus control and even skin support, the only bad part is that in order to update avast`s database you need to register so that you can get a free license key but that`s small price for this antivirus.

2.- AGV Antivirus

AVG Anti-virus is low on system resources, updates automatically ,provides realtime proteccion and has a system vault for infected files.


3.-Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic


Avira antivir PersonalEdition is a little know antivirus that it can detect dialers and phishing attempts and rootkit removal in addition to the standard computer virus proteccion, it works in windows xp`s 32/64 editions and linux.

4.- Comodo AntiVirus
Comodo AntiVirus is a free offering from the suit of freeware tools that is produced by comodo.com , it can Detect and eliminate viruses from desktops and networks, Constantly protects with real-time On Access scanning,has a heuristic scanning tool,blocks malware before it can run,daily update of virus definitions,Etc.

5.-Bit defender

bitdefender has a free version for either windows or linux

Xnview

Xnview is free image view and converter for Windows, MacOS X, Linux x86, Linux ppc, FreeBSD x86, OpenBSD x86, NetBSD x86, Solaris sparc, Solaris x86, Irix mips, HP-UX, AIX ,it main features are the capacity to resize,rotate,crop, an image in addition to export to 50 types of graphic files formats,gif support,apply filters,apply effects,screen capture,batch support and much more. plus its lightweight so you don´t need much resources to run it.


download at http://pagesperso-orange.fr/pierre.g/xnview/enxnview.html

Gparted

Gparted is an open source partition manager, you can choose to install it in a linux OS or boot it from a CD drive or usb pendrive. with gparted you can create,resize,delete,copy,and mirror partitions, it has a very simple interface which is easy to use however you still need a basic understanding of what you´re doing in order to not screw up,you can check a useful guide here

download gparted at http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

Startup Control Panel

so you boot up windows and you realize that more and more programs keep appearing at startup and after awhile it becomes really annoying,while its true you can change that setting in most programs, a handful of programs don´t even give you that option,that´s when startup control panel comes in,it allows you to disable each program that runs at startup or outright delete them if you want to, you can disable only your programs or the programs of all user.

startupclp can either be installed in your control panel or used from a pendrive with the stand alone exe version,both versions are very lightweight.

download it at:http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

T r u e C r y p t

Truecrypt is a free encrypting tool for windows xp,vista,2000 and linux, it main features are that it creates a virtual disk for you to place your files in, plus you can encrypt entire hardrives,partions or usb drives. the encryption happens in real time after you have setup the virtual disk after that just drag´n drop the sensitive data. in addition you can create two passwords with the hidden volume feature,one will show no data the other will show the real contents of the virtual disk, this is a handy feature if you are forced to reveal the password.

download at it: http://www.truecrypt.org/

Aimp Classic

Aimp is a music player similar to winamp but unlike winamp´s latest version it plays nice with computers that don´t have many system resources,in fact you only need an audio card, direct 8.1 and 3 MB of HDD space!,aimp has a slick interface complete with a search bar, support of nearly type of audio file,multilanguage support,converter of audio files,hotkey support,internet radio and much more,i use it because unlike many other players it doesn´t feel bloated and does what you need well with little configuration.

so if you feel interested download it at: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Audio-Players/AIMP-Classic.shtml

obviously this isn´t the official site, that would be
http://www.aimp.ru/, why i am not linking to it?,because the site is in russian and unfortunately this blog doesn´t have many russians readers :(

ExplorerXP

ExplorerXP is an explorer replacement for windows,unlike the default explorer it has a tabbed interface,multi rename tool, display the zise of directories and zip files,configurable keywords and more!, probably the best part is the download size,only 410 KB ,so if you dislike the windows explorer this is one of your best choices.

download version1.07 at http://www.explorerxp.com/

CDBurnerXP

CDBurnerXP is a program to burn CD,DVD and even Blue-ray and HDDVD´s!, also you can make your own audio CD, CD/DVD image converter and bootable discs and lots of other goodies.
CDBurnerXP has a simple user interface and a simple theme that goes well with windows XP, the only bad thing i could find is that in slower computers (i have a P4 at 1,7 ghz and 256MB of RAM) it takes a while to load the main menu but that is a small price to pay for such a excelent program,CDBurnerXP requires .NET framework which can be download here.

you can download it at: http://cdburnerxp.se/

here are some more screenshots: