Disable the windows key without hacking the registry with Windows Key Disabler

Overview:

Do you ever accidentally hit the Windows key while you're playing a game? Would you rather not go through the hassle of applying a registry edit and rebooting each time you want to enable or disable the Windows key? Windows Key Disabler is the solution. Windows Key Disabler is a small application that sits in your system tray allowing you to simply double-click the tray icon to toggle between the Windows keys being enabled or disabled without using up precious system resources.


Review:

So i am playing a certain game and i accidentally pressed the windows key causing the game to be minimized and the start bar to be displayed, that sucks, a lot. Thankfully today i found a little program that finally lets me disable the windows key without hacking into the registry like Windows support page says (seriously they couldn't bother to write a little application for this?), this program is called Windows Key Disabler. it comes in a small executable that when launched will show a small windows icon in the system tray, just double click the icon to disable the windows key and again to enable it, its very easy. you can tell when the key is disabled because the icon will be in B&W. This is a small program that doesn't require installation and it is very lightweight, a must if you hate the windows key as much as me. Available for Windows XP only.


Get it at http://www.quinnsoft.com/programs/windows_key_disabler.php

Manage your compressed files with the cute AlZip

Overview:

ALZip is the easiest to use, most powerful, and by far the cutest compression utility available.


Features:


* ALZip SPEED EXTRACTOR!

* Improved Update & Restore

* Open 36 Formats

* Create 8 Formats

* Self-Extracting Archives SFX/EXE

* Split Spanned Archives

* Password Protection

* Lost Password Recovery


Review:

There is a bunch of free file compression managers out there but i can't bet you that most aren't as cute as AlZip. With this program you can manage your ZIPs, your RARs and most of the compressed formats that are out there because it has support for over 36 compression formats, wow i didn't there were so many. Moving on there is one feature that makes Alzip really cool and that is the ability to unzip files very quickly with just a double click, you can set it up so that it automatically it unzips the file to a predetermined location like the desktop or it can show a small menu where you can select more options like extract to /filename,Etc.
After using AlZip for a while now i can say that's a pretty good replacement for the previous manager that i was using called IZArc, i have nothing against IZArc its just that AlZip is just more faster thanks to the speed extraction that i was talking about earlier.
In conclusion AlZip is a pretty good compression manager and is pretty cute too! Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://www.altools.com/ALTools/ALZip.aspx

Edit text files with the fully featured text editor EditPad Lite

Overview:

EditPad Lite is a general-purpose text editor, designed to be small and compact, yet offer all the functionality you expect from a basic text editor. EditPad Lite works with Windows NT4, 98, 2000, ME, XP and Vista.


Features:


* You can open as many files in EditPad at a time as you want.

* You change between the open files by clicking on their tabs. No hassle with heaps of overlapping windows.

* You will enjoy EditPad's unlimited undo and redo. You can even undo changes after saving them, as long as you did not close the file.

* EditPad reads and writes UNIX LF only and Mac CR only text files in addition to DOS/Windows CRLF files, of course.

* With EditPad you can directly edit Unicode text files and text files encoded in a variety of legacy code pages. EditPad supports all Windows and ISO-8859 code pages, plus a wide selection of DOS, KOI8 and EBCDIC code pages. This means EditPad can edit any text file, whether it was saved on a Windows or Linux computer, an old DOS PC or an IBM mainframe.

* If you run EditPad again when there is already an instance running, the files you wish to edit will be opened by the existing EditPad window. This means there will be at most one EditPad window open, which will save you from a lot of task switching.

Of course, if you do need more instances, simply pick View|New editor from the menu.

* Block functions: save parts of your text to disk and insert a file in the current text.

* You can specify many print settings: font, margins, headers/footers, etc. and immediately see the effects in the print preview.

* You have the option to keep the EditPad window on top of all other windows.

* When you close an unsaved file, EditPad will either warn you, automatically save the file as you prefer.

* Reopen menu that lists the last 16 files opened.

* EditPad puts an icon in the system tray that remains visible, even if EditPad is closed. This way you have easy and fast access to EditPad, without the need to keep it running all the time. If you do not like this, you can, of course, disable this feature and make EditPad behave like a normal Windows application.

* EditPad fully supports double byte character systems DBCS so you can edit texts written in Far East languages, such as Chinese, Japanese or Korean, as easily as those written in European languages.

* Many settings such as word wrap, line numbering and auto indent can be made for each file type individually. You could activate word wrap but not auto indent when editing a plain text file, and just the other way around when editing source code. You can also define your own file types which will be used to build the filters for open and save dialog boxes.

* Configure EditPad's appearance to your own taste and eyesight. Select the colors, font face and font size that you like. Make text cursor highly visible by selecting its size, color and blinking style. Make the mouse pointer easy to spot by choosing its shape and colors.

* Uppercase, lowercase, invert case and initial caps conversion

* Easy and working installation and uninstallation, delivered with DeployMaster.

* Free for non-commercial use. Professionals should use EditPad Pro


Review:

Lets face it, the standard Windows notepad is very light in the features department. for making quick notes it is very handy but for more in deep work it can be lacking. EditPad Lite can be the solution that you are looking for. This program packs a a lot of features in a small package, for starters it has tab support so you can open several files at once using a single instance of EditPad lite which is very handy. truthfully there was so many features that it made me kinda overhwelmed since i certainly didn't need them all but i welcome their inclusion nonetheless. Tough it has a lot features it is also missing some, for example it doesn't have any integrated spellchecker or syntax highlighting because those features are exclusive to the paid version called EditPad Pro which has many more features compared to the lite version. Still EditPad Lite is a pretty good text editor when compared to the boring notepad since it doesn't takes up much meory and can be run from a pendrive.
In conclusion i suggest you use EditPad lite if you need something more powerful that the Windows Notepad. Available for Windows NT4/98/2000/ME/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html

Find and remove duplicates from your computer with Double Killer

Overview:

DoubleKiller is a fast and easy to use application for finding and removing duplicate files.


Features:

# Scans directories, complete drives or computers in your Network Neighborhood for duplicate files

# Freely combinable comparison criteria file name, size, date and content

# You can exclude files based on their name, file type, attributes or size

# Presents a list of all identical files so you can decide which ones to remove

# Deletes the files you chose or moves them to another directory

# Allows to export the result list to a text file



Review:

A duplicate is an exact copy of a thing, in computers this can be bad because duplicates take up needed space in a hard drive. So in order to find and delete those duplicates in your PC i would suggest using Double Killer. This program will scan your computer for duplicates using several criteria like name, size , date of creation and CRC32 checksums. this last method is the most accurate but its also the slowest tough i would recommend to always use it since it provides the best results. You can only search for specific files and remove specific files from being searched by placing their extension in the filter box so that's pretty handy if you ask me.
the only fault that i have with this program is the fact that you can't exclude folders from being searched, so you can't scan C:\ and exclude the C:\WINDOWS folder which sucks.
In conclusion Double Killer worked well in my tests and is also very fast and doesn't need installation, so use it to find out if you are wasting space by having duplicates inside your computer. Available for all versions of windows.


Get it at http://www.bigbangenterprises.de/en/doublekiller/

Check for new emails in your Gmail account with Gmail Notifier

Overview:

A notifier for Gmail accounts.


Review:

Lets say that the only email account that you have is a Gmail one so you probably don't need a multi email notifier like webmail notifier, a better solution would be found in Gmail Notifier. Like the name says it will let you know when new emails have arrived in your inbox and let you go to it quickly. You can set up various accounts at the same time so that is handy if you have more than one google account.
The programs works well i think i will stick to webmail notifier since i have varius email accounts from difffferent providers. Available for Firefox 2.0. - 3.0.*


Get it at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/173

Check your feeds smartly with Feedreader

Overview:

Feedreader is a FREE RSS news aggregation solution that provides robust, state-of-the-art features in an intuitive, user-friendly environment.


Features:


Improved user interface


* Radically simplified user interface

* One-click access for different view modes

* Popular "River Of News" view

* Grouping headlines by source, date or tag

* Possibility to add and remove columns from view



Powerful filtering and smartfeed engine


* Ultimate configurability, every normal feed can be converted to smartfeed and vice versa

* Possibility to combine multiple feeds to one feed



Performance improvements


* Better handling of large number of feeds

* Faster startup and shutdown times

* Smart feed updates - unique algorithm that learns the update frequency of feeds and triggers the updates only when needed



Other


* Enclosures and podcasting support

* Tagging support

* Nested folder support

* Full Unicode support

* Secure SSL connection support



Requirements


* Internet Explorer 6.0 or newer

* Windows 2000 or newer



Review:

So like the 100+ of you know its important to have a RSS reader in order to digest large amounts of information more easily, so for that i present to you Feedreader. This is a fully featured RSS reader with a useful options like automatic podcast downloading , auto search of feeds and tagging support.
But there is one feature that makes Feedreader really shine and that feature is the smartfeeds option, this is a smart feed that takes relevant content from all of your feeds using whatever criteria that you want, for example you can make the smart feed only show post with "freeware" in the title. the smartfeeds will save you time by only showing the content that you like.
The performance of the program is a little high for my taste, you see 18 to 20MB can be hard on a PC with only 256MB of memory (yeah my pc sucks) but other than that i think this is a solid program.
Available for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.feedreader.com/

Add live previews when Alt-Tabbing using Alt-Tab Replacement

Overview:

With this PowerToy, in addition to seeing the icon of the application window you are switching to, you will also see a preview of the page. This helps particularly when multiple sessions of an application are open.


Review:

If you are looking for just live previews when alt-tabbing then maybe Alt-Tab Replacement is a good choice over TaskSwitchXP. This program simply adds live previews when alt-tabbing, nothing more. like i said if you want more features you should really use TaskSwitchXP but for us that enjoy simplicity (like me) TaskSwitchXP is more than enough.
Available for Windows XP.


Get it at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx

Preview, install, backup and manage your fonts with NexusFont

Overview:

NexusFont is a font manager for Windows. If you have many fonts and you need to choose fonts you want, this program is for you. You can compare many fonts at once. And there are useful functions to manage font files.


Features:


* Supported Font Types: TrueType, TrueType Collection, OpenType, Adobe Type1.

* Install/Uninstall fonts: install fonts into system or uninstall fonts from system.

* Find Duplicate Fonts: find duplicate fonts in folders and delete unnecessary font files.

* Print: print fonts list with user defined sample text

* Export as Image: export font list as an image with user defined sample text

* AntiAliasing: supports antialiasing for designers

* Rename: Rename font files with their font name

* Copy/Move/Delete: manages font files

* Favorite Fonts: manages fonts by favorite groups


Review:

Managing your fonts in windows sucks, but there is a good solution in NexusFont. With this program you can quickly preview your installed fonts, backup them and reinstall them very quickly. Using NexusFont is certainly better than using the bothersome and slow default font manager found in windows xp (the one i use) . NexusFont is easy to use and just works, in addition you can carry in your pendrive since its portable.
In conclusion if you are looking for an efficient way of managing your font then simply use Nexusfont, it worked great for me! Available for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista.


Get it at http://www.xiles.net/

Check for dead links and duplicates in your bookmarks with AM-DeadLink

Overview:

AM-DeadLink detects dead links and duplicates in browser bookmarks and text files. If a bookmark has become unavailable you can verify and delete it permanently. Additionally you can download FavIcons for all your Favorites and Bookmarks.

AM-DeadLink is Freeware!


Features:


AM-DeadLink can check the following resources:


* Internet Explorer Favorites

* Firefox bookmarks

* Opera bookmarks

* URLs from tab delimited text files

* URLs from comma separated text files



AM-DeadLink can download FavIcons for:



* Internet Explorer Favorites

* Firefox bookmarks

* Opera bookmarks


Review:

If you have ever felt the desire to check your bookmarks for dead links or duplicates then AM-DeadLink is a good way to do just that. This program will check internet explorer, firefox and opera bookmarks for those links that doesn't exist anymore, it will also detect duplicates. you can preview the links in your bookmarks using a handy built in browser.
One fault that AM-DeadLink has is that you can't directly edit the boomarks of firefox 3, you see it doesn't use a bookmarks html file like firefox 2.x ,internet explorer and opera. So if you use firefox 3 you will have to export your bookmarks to a html file ,check them with AM-DeadLink and reimport them into FF3. be sure to delete the old bookmarks before you reimport the new ones so that you don't end up with a bunch of duplicates.
In conclusion if you want to check your bookmarks without having to go one by one i suggest you use AM-DeadLink, it worked for me just fine. Available for all Windows versions.


Get it at http://www.aignes.com/deadlink.htm

Uninstall programs and clean up your computer with Revo Uninstaller

Overview:

Revo Uninstaller helps you to uninstall and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.
Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet!


Features:


Revo Uninstaller gives you another 8 handy and powerful tools to clean up your system.

Here is the list of the tools and utilities included in Revo Uninstaller:



Auto Start Manager - Stop programs that start automatically on Windows startup; speed up loading of Windows!


Windows Tools Manager - Handy and useful tools bundled with every version of Windows; easily find useful system tools and options!



Junk Files Cleaner - Find and remove unnecessary files from your computer; free up disk space and delete files you do not need!



Browsers History Cleaner - Erase web browser history, visited pages history and temporary internet files of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape and Opera web browsers; free up a lot of disk space by deleting temporary internet files like temporary saved videos, temporary flash files, temporary pictures etc!



Office History Cleaner - Remove the history of most recently used files in MS Office; remove your tracks by deleting the list of last opened MS Office documents!



Windows History Cleaner - Remove the history of recently opened files, delete temporary files, remove usage tracks and other history items that are saved by Windows; remove your tracks saved by Windows for a lot of operations!



Unrecoverable Delete Tool - Erase files and folders forever; be sure that nobody could recover your files and folders after deleting!



Evidence Remover - Make sure already deleted files, folders and other data are unrecoverable; securely erase your data!


Review:

Uninstalling programs and cleaning your computer of unneeded files can be hassle without a having a program designed for that, thankfully Revo Uninstaller is a good solution to this problem. Like the name says with this program you can uninstall programs, unlike the normal windows method you can search a specific program by name using the search bar which is very handy.
Revo Uninstaller can also be used to clean up your computer by deleting junk files, cleaning browser's history and deleting the history of files from MS office. also in the package is a startup manager for managaing which programs start at startup, a quick link for access to the most useful windows tools and more!
After using Revo Uninstaller for a while i feel confident in saying that is a solid program, the only fault is that it can't clean up the registry so you are going to have another program like ccleaner in order to that.
In conclusion Revo Uninstaller is a great way to clean up your computer from junk files and the uninstallation of Windows programs. Available for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.revouninstaller.com/

Make 3d models easily and quickly with Google sketchup

Overview:

Google SketchUp is software that you can use to create, export and present 3D models. Whether you want to design a new deck for your house, build models for Google Earth, or teach geometry to your fifth-graders, you can use SketchUp to see your ideas in 3D. And when you're done, you can export an image, make a movie or print out a view of what you made.


Review:
If you have ever had the desire to make 3d models then Google SketchUp is an excellent way to start. Google SketchUp is a program for 3d modeling with an easy learning curve, you can make anything as long you put the effort like the picture of the crappy house i made shows, yeah i suck at modeling. What makes Google SketchUp easy to use is useful tools that can be used to make complicated task easy like for example the push-pull tool that allows you to quickly stretch surfaces.
Also of importance is the ability to install first and third party plugins that adds useful features like for example 3D text and the rendering of 3D models that make the finished results look photo realistic.
If you have the will and skill you can make models of important places from where you live and upload them to google earth for everyone to see, this is a neat feature that could be put to good use i think.
In conclusion i would like to say that Google SketchUp is an excellent way to get started in the ·D modeling business , i like to use it even tough i suck but i am sure that you can be better than me if you put some effort. Available for Windows 2000/XP/Vista and MacOSX.


Get it at http://sketchup.google.com/



PS: If you are wondering why i haven't been posting lately it was because i was really sick, so yeah i will probably make up the posts i lost.

Lock Windows with style using Matrix Screen locker

Overview:

Matrix Screen Locker is screen locking utility


Review:

If you have ever watched the matrix you may have though that those green symbols scrolling down looked pretty good, well you are in luck since Matrix Screen Locker is a small utility that will lock your PC from prying hands using the same cool matrix style. After installing the application right click the "X" icon in the system tray to set a new password since by default the program doesn´t comes with one , now click the icon to lock your PC , you can´t Ctrl+Alt+Del to run the task manager in order to stop the Matrix Screen Locker´s process so you can´t bypass the locker unless you know the password. I have tried matrix screen locker and indeed you can´t run the task manager while the program is running.
In conclusion if you want to lockdown your PC with style while you are away from the keyboard Matrix Screen Locker is a decent choice. Available for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP.


Get it at http://www.baroufasoft.net/matrix.htm

Find stuff in your computer quickly with Copernic Desktop Search

Overview:

Copernic desktop search is a desktop search utility for Windows.


Features:


Find any file on your computer


* Instantly find Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, HTML, Word Perfect, text, ZIP files.

* Quickly locate emails or attachments from Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora and Mozilla Thunderbird.

* Search for over 150 other types of files like MP3, JPG, WAV, MPEG.

* Power your search with specific refining fields or advanced search operators.


Results and beyond


* Instantly preview filtered matching results.

* Use dynamic word-find buttons to trace keywords in document previews.

* Quickly find search keywords: auto-scroll to first occurrence and highlighted keywords.

* Easily sort and group search results.

* Act on result: open folders or files, open, reply or forward emails, etc.


Copernic’s usability expertise


* Search the Web or your computer from the same lightweight, intuitive interface.

* Use convenient toolbars: deskbar and browser toolbar.

* Stay informed with RSS feeds delivered straight to your ticker Internet Explorer browser only.

* Speed up your access to Web and desktop searching with useful keyboard shortcuts.



Take control of your search experience


* Choose file and email folders to index.

* Control your computer resources usage when indexing documents.

* Specify additional file types to index.

* Benefit from automatic, unnoticed real-time indexing of new/updated files and emails.

* Selectively suspend the indexing process when a laptop runs on battery power.


Review:

If you are anything like me you probably keep all your computer files all over the place, this is is bad when you are trying to look for a specific file and can´t find it because you don´t remember where you put it in. now you could spend hours looking for that file or simply use copernic desktop search, this program will scan your hard drives for files and will index them for easy searching. By default copernic desktop search will only index your files when your computer is idle but that is annoying so i suggest you uncheck that option in the preference screen and only leave the "suspend indexing while computer resources are highly used" option, this way the indexing will go much faster like in my case. You can put a highly useful search bar right in the Windows taskbar which can be used for quick searches, also copernic desktop search doesn´t take many resources , in my experience it only used like 6 to 7 MB with the search bar in the taskbar which is great. Finally i would like to say that this program was able to index all of the files in "my documents" folder and desktop well and was able to detect new files quickly which is truly awesome if you ask me.
In conclusion if you want a lightweight, fast and efficient desktop searching tool i suggest you use Copernic Desktop Search. Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/index.html

Universal Share Downloader is a download manager specifically made for rapidshare and megaupload

Overview:

It allows you to download many files in batch sequence without having to go trough the pain of going to the download page of rapidshare and megaupload.


Review:

Today i bring something different, universal share downloader is a download manger for the file sharing sites rapidshare and megaupload that annoy you with their download tickets, stupid CAPTCHAs and stuff like that. You can paste several links of files and USD will automatically download them all in sequence without you having to move a finger, handy right? also this program contains useful options like sutting down the PC after all downloads are complete and a scheduler.
By the way after you have downloaded universal share downloader from the link below go to the options screen (F10) and go the update section and click update now, this will update the program itself along with the plugins installed, this is very important since the program only worked right after i did that step.
In conclusion if you want an easier way to download stuff from rapidshare and megaupload use universal share downloader. Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at

Official webpage (its in russian) http://dimonius.ru/

Strip your emails from ">" and "|" characters with StripMail

Overview:

StripMail is a FREEWARE utility that:

* Strips the characters ">" and "|" from forwarded e-mails.

* Formats the text into paragraphs, making it easier to read.

* Changes the text's right margin, by indenting.

* Can be used with any e-mail client.



Review:

StripMail is a small program for the removing of those annoying characters in emails like ">" and the formatting of text into paragraphs. Just copy and paste the original email into stripmail and click "strip" , this will remove the ">" characters , the "paragraph" button will eliminate the blank space between the text making paragraphs. You can right click the program for even more formatting options.
In conclusion stripmail is very easy to use and just works how it should. Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://www.dsoft.com.tr/stripmail/

Down Them All! is a download manager that can be launched right inside firefox

Overview:

The first and only download manager/accelerator built inside Firefox!


Review:

So lets say that you spend all your time in firefox and don´t want to use an outside download manager, the most easy way to accomplish that is trough downthemall this extension is a download manager that can be launched right inside firefox. Downthemall main strengths are the ability to select for download all the data found on a webpage or filter them using predefined filters like images,videos,Etc. you can even even rename the just downloaded files using a handy set of renaming tags. While downthemall has some handy features i feel like is lacking some, for example you can´t shutdown your PC automatically after a download and you also can`t schedule a download , this would be awesome additions if you ask me and would make downthemall even more useful.
In conclusion while i feel like downthemall could use some extra features it´s still a very useful download manager. Available for Firefox: 2.0.0.8. - 3.0.*


Get it at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201

Official site: http://www.downthemall.net/


PS: If anyone is wondering why i didn´t post anything yesterday its because i had to write a program in pascal, btw pascal is crap D:

Password Exporter will export and import all your firefox passwords

Overview:

This extension allows you to export your saved passwords and disabled login hosts using XML or CSV files that can be imported in another browser or computer.


Review:

Password exporter can save you lots of time when going from computer to computer or when you reinstall firefox since it can export and then import your saved password. I used this extension as a quick and easy way to have my firefox 2 passwords when i made the switch to firefox 3, it was quick and painless tough remember to check the "encrypt username/password" (this is to prevent causal user like your mom to gain access to your info, in no way it will stop very advanced users from getting your passwords) and erase the password file after you have imported your password so that no bad people get a hold of your personal information, they can import that file themselfs you know. Password exporter is a quick and easy way to export and import your password easily but is in no way secure, use extreme caution if you are going to use this extension okay? Available for firefox 2.0 - 3.0*


Get it at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2848

Clipomatic will save all the text that you copy into the clipboard for quick and easy pasting

Overview:

Clipomatic is a clipboard cache program. It remembers what was copied to the clipboard and allows you to retrieve it, even after you've copied something else to the clipboard. Clipomatic only works with text. It works on any modern version of Windows.


Review:

Being able to save only text item in the clipboard is very bothersome if you ask me, what if you need a text line that you copied a while ago and can´t retrieve it because it was overwritten when you copied a new text? thankfully there are a few ways beyond this windows limitation and one of them is called clipomatic. This small program will keep a record of the text that you put into the clipboard that can be retrieved when pasting by simply pressing CTRL+ALT+V, this will show you a list of the current stored text, in addition you can set a list of permanent text that will always be displayed when pasting. Clipomatic takes very little memory when running in the system tray which makes it really handy, however it can only work with text which is a minor fault in my opinion.
In conclusion if you want a more robust way of pasting text in windows then i suggest you use clipomatic. Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://www.mlin.net/Clipomatic.shtml

LameXP is an excellent graphical front-end for the LAME mp3, OGG Vorbis and Nero ACC encoders

Overview:

LameXP is a graphical front-end for the LAME MP3, Ogg Vorbis and Nero AAC encoders.The Nero Encoder is *not* included in the download, it's available from the Nero Website as free download.
Accepted input formats are: Wave, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC/MP4, FLAC, WavPack, Musepack, Speex and APE. Batch processing is implemented and will use multi-threading when several processors/cores are available.


Review:

Lets say that you have bunch of music in your computer that you want to put in your media player but it only accepts MP3s , now could try to figure out how to use lame mp3 which only works by command line or simply use lameXP which is a very handy graphical front-end for various encoders. You just need to input some music in the accepted formats, choose an encoder and hit encode and you are set to go! just remember that if you want to keep your music properly tagged leave the title of the song as the filename of the music you want to encode, then fill the artist and album meta data fields since after the encoding you will lose all your tags, by the way that sucks. Anyway lameXP has a bunch of options for the quality of encoding like bitrate , sample-rate,channel mode,Etc.
In conclusion while not keeping tags after encoding is probably a big fault that doesn´t keep lameXP from being a good encoder for the most popular codecs used. Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://mulder.dummwiedeutsch.de/home/?page=projects#lamexp

Control the volume of your speaker using your mouse wheel with Volumouse

Overview:

Volumouse provides you a quick and easy way to control the sound volume on your system - simply by rolling the wheel of your wheel mouse.
It allows you to define a set of rules for determining when the wheel will be used for changing the sound volume. For example: You can configure Volumouse to use your mouse wheel for volume control when the Alt key is hold down, when the left mouse button is down, when the mouse cursor is over the taskbar, and so on...
When the conditions that you define are not satisfied, your mouse wheel will be used for the regular scrolling tasks, exactly as before.

System Requirements:

• Windows operating system: Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Vista. (Windows 95 is not supported)
• Wheel mouse
• Sound card.

Review:

Volumouse is a great utility that allows to change the volume of your system by simply holding down a key and rolling your mouse wheel, just select a mouse wheel rule from the default selection or make your own custom hotkeys. Changing your volume is not all volumouse can do , you can change the screen brightness or the transparency of windows and thanks to some very cool plugins you can even completely hide active windows, open your CD/DVD tray and resize windows.
Be sure you turn off the "Display percent label" if you plan to use this program when running games because the percentage bar will probably interfere when you are playing, just a friendly tip.
In conclusion if you want to quickly change your speaker volume and other things using your mouse wheel then i suggest you use Volumouse. Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/volumouse.html

K-Lite Codec Pack will allow you to play 99% of the videos found on the internet.

Overview:

K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs, DirectShow filters and tools. Codecs and DirectShow filters are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video formats. The K-Lite Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files. With the K-Lite Codec Pack you should be able to play all the popular audio and video formats and even some rare formats.

This download is for the Full package and contains all the codecs a normal user would ever need.

The K-Lite Codec Pack has a couple of major advantages compared to other codec packs:

• It it always very up-to-date with the newest (and/or best) versions of the components.
• It is very user-friendly.
• The installation is fully customizable, meaning that you are able install exactly those components that you really want.
• Uninstallation removes all files and registry entries created by the pack.
• It is extremely easy to make a fully customized unattended installation.
• It has been very well tested, so that the package doesn't contain any conflicting or buggy codecs.
• It tries to avoid potential problems with existing codecs and even fixes some problems. The pack is able to detect broken codecs and filters on your system, and remove them for you.
• It is a very complete package, containing everything you need to play your movies.
• There are different packages. From small to extra-large.
• Suitable for both novice and expert users.

Review:

You download a video and are happy because you will able to watch it but when you try to play it your video player will say that there is a missing codec and that it can´t play the file, if you don´t want that to happen i suggest you use k-lite codec pack. This program will install a series of codec, filters and tools that will allow you to pretty much play anything out there, you can use which things are going to be installed but i recommend to just go with the default installation since that worked pretty well for me. in addition the codec is constantly updated so you don´t have to worry about a future format or something like that.
In conclusion if you want a codec package that will allow you play the majority of the video files out there , then k-lite codec pack is your best choice in my opinion. Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_lite_codec_pack.htm

Monitor your fan speed, disk temperatures and many more important information with HWMonitor

Overview:

HWMonitor is a hardware monitoring program that reads PC systems main health sensors : voltages, temperatures, fans speed.

The program handles the most common sensor chips, like ITE® IT87 series, most Winbond® ICs, and others. In addition, it can read modern CPUs on-die core thermal sensors, as well has hard drives temperature via S.M.A.R.T, and video card GPU temperature.

Special hardware monitors such as abit® uGuru and Gigabyte® ODIN™ power supplies serie are supported too.


Supported Hardware:


CPUs on-die temperature sensors

* Intel® Core™ /Core™ 2 Digital Thermal Sensor.

* AMD® Athlon™ 64 Thermal Sensor.

* AMD® Phenom™ Thermal Sensor.



On-board sensor ICs

* Winbond® W83781D, W83793, W83627HF, W83697HF, W83791D, W83627THF, W83627EHF, W83627DHG.

* ITE® IT8705, IT8712, IT8716, IT8718.

* Asus® AS99127, ASB100.

* SMSC® LPC47M192, EMC6D102, EMC6D103, DME1737, EMC6W201.

* Analog Device® ADM1021, ADM1030, AMD1031, ADT7461, ADT7475, ADT7490.

* Fintek® F71805, F71862, F71872, F71882.

* National Semiconductor® LM63.

* Andigilog® ASC7621.



Customized hardware monitors

* abit® uGuru 2003 and uGuru 2005.

* Gigabyte® ODIN™ power supplies monitoring.



Hard drive monitoring

* SMART temperature.



Video card monitoring

* NVIDIA® and ATI® GPUs temperature.



Memory modules monitoring

* FB-DIMM integrated thermal sensor Intel® 5400A/B MCH only.


ACPI

* ACPI Thermal Zone.


Review:

Monitoring your hardware is very important, it can let you know if a component is failing or if its about to fail. HWMonitor helps you do just that, it can monitor things like the cpu fan speed, hard drive temperatures and the power coming from the power source among many other things. all of this is possible thanks to the sensors already installed in your system, you don´t need to have the latest system in order to make hwmonitor work, i should know since my PC is pretty old technology speaking but hwmonitor managed to pick up my CPU information like voltages;temperature;fan speed and also my hard drive temperature like the screenshot i posted shows, of course if you have a more newer PC you should enjoy more information than me.
In conclusion hwmonitor is a great and portable system monitoring tool. Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

Oh yeah, i added a google search bar to the blog

Like the title said i added a new google search bar to the site, it would help if some of you could test it out and let me know if it works and if it adds something to the site. it probably won´t but i think it looks cool oh and if you are wondering why i took so long in adding something so simple to the site like a web search bar its because i am lazy fuck, yeah i am lazy.

Also scribble is awesome!

Rename tags from mp3 files with Mp3 Tag Tools

Overview:

Mp3 Tag Tools - intutive ID3v1 & v2.x, lyrics, picture tag editor, mp3 organizer. massid3lib - An Open source library in VC++ 6.0 & MFC for seek and mass tagging of individual one or more set id3 v1.1 fields.


Review:

If you have some mp3 files that need tagging then mp3 tag tools might be a good choice. This program can be used to edit ID3 tags that display the artist name, song title,Etc. Using the straightforward interface you can edit several files at a time which is handy, you can even mass rename tags using the filename of the mp3s or the folder where they are located. This program is easy to use and it works well however it has not been updated in over four years which is disappointing, so don`t expect any new versions any time soon.
In conclusion i feel that mp3 tag tools is a decent tag editor. Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://sourceforge.net/projects/massid3lib