Royale Noir is a cool XP theme that can be installed without using any hacks

Overview:
Royale Noir is a lost XP theme that can be installed without using the uxtheme patcher.


Review:

So i recently installed the Windows XP service pack 3 thinking it would improve security , it did. however i found an unexpected problem. the uxtheme.dll didn't work anymore so i got stuck with the crappy default theme. after some research i found that there is a SP3 version of the uxtheme patcher but before i did that i looked for a theme that could be installed right away without doing something extra and i came across Royale Noir (via istartedsomething) . This theme is basically the default Windows XP theme with a coat of black paint that looks great, at least in my humble opinion. all you have to do is extract the compressed files into “C:\windows\resources\themes\royale noir” then double click on “luna.msstyles” and finally select “Noir” from “Color Scheme”. I think most of you know of this theme but in the chance that some of you haven't heard about it i decided i would make a post in my blog about Royale Noir, so yeah.


Get it at

Artweaver can help you create drawings using a Photoshop like interface

Overview:

Artweaver is a simple Freeware program for creative painting, i.e. Artweaver offers you all artistic effects which you need for your work.

You can create sketches from photos and experiment with a wide range of brushes. The brush simulation is thereby so realistic as possible.


Features:

• Support of many different digital brushes e.g. chalk, charcoal, pencils...
• A wide variety of adjustment settings to customize the default brushes or to create new brushes.
• Standard image editing tools like gradient, crop, fill and selection tools.
• Support for the most common file formats like AWD (Artweaver), BMP, GIF, JPEG, PCX, TGA, TIFF, PNG, and PSD (no layer support).
• Transparency and Layers support.
• Effect filters like sharpen, blur, emboss and mosaic.
• Editable text layers.
• Pen Tablet support for a realistic feeling.
• History function to undo/redo last editing steps.
• Expandable by Plug-In modules (Artweaver Standard).
• Support for many languages through language files.

Review:

Artweaver is a new player in the business of manipulating and creating images. it can edit pictures using filters and layers like Photoshop, actually the first thing that you will notice is that the interface is pretty much copied from Photoshop and so you will not have many problems getting used to Artweaver if you have ever used Adobe's program. This program comes with a lot of digital brushes like charcoal , chalk, oils,Etc. for creating really complex and professionals drawings, you can even use a Pen tablet for a more realistic feel. also there is a pretty large quantity of filters like grain, blur, ripple, Etc. there is a plugin pack that you can download in order to get even more effects.
Unfortunately Artweaver does not have some cool features that Photoshop has. for starters there's no magnetic lasso or anything like it so you have to manually select an area with Artweaver's lasso tool and i found that very hard to do using my mouse, Photosop's magnetic lasso was a great tool when i was making funny pictures. also drag'n drop doesn't work between pictures so i couldn't move a selected area between two pictures without using copy and paste which is very disappointing because i did that quite a lot in Photoshop. However all of these things could change since the program is still early in development and i expect to see lots of improvements in the future.
Artweaver is a pretty good program for those of you that want an image editor for creating your own drawing using several brushes and effects, just keep in mind that the program is still in development. Available for Windows 2000/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?artweaver_en

Automatically change your wallpaper with WallPaper Master

Overview:

Wallpaper Master is a powerful and highly customizable desktop wallpaper manager and cycler.

It will automatically change your background wallpaper with a huge range of options, and is great for indexing large collections of personal photos or any kind of image.

You can create your own categories using images on your computer, and it will cycle through your images automatically in whatever order you specify: in a shuffle mode, listed order, or based on your personal ratings. The program also has auto-size options to make sure your images are displayed with optimal size.


Features:

• Store multiple wallpaper lists as different categories/libraries - up to 5000 images per category!
• The ability to rate wallpaper, so better wallpapers are chosen more often.
• Customizable Global Hotkeys - Quickly change/clear the wallpaper with any key combo.
• Very high quality resizing of images to fit the screen optimally and keep their aspect ratio.
• Auto change the wallpaper when windows starts, every x minutes, or use the ratings to choose an interval.
• Change wallpaper in order, in shuffle mode, or randomly according to rating.
• Analyse the wallpaper and automatically choose between Resize, Tile, Center or Stretch.
• Uses very little resources.
• Minimises to tray area for easy access.
• Easy to use but powerful interface.
• Desktop Wallpaper Master is a free download (freeware)!
• And more!

Review:

Looking always at the same old desktop wallpaper can get boring very fast. WallPaper master fixes this problem with lots of options. with this program you can select up to 5000 pictures per category and automatically choose one of them as your wallpaper,you can do this by random order or by ratings which is handy in making your favorite wallpapers show up more frequently.
WallPaper Master has a lot of features but the most useful is the "auto resize wallpaper" that will shrink a picture to make it fit into the screen if its too big or tile it if it is too small. This program uses between 10 to 11MB of RAM in my system which is a little high for my taste.Unfortunately WallPaper Master only supports JPG and GIF files which is a pretty small selection. also it doesn't support vista which is a shame for some of you and the development has stopped in favor of the Pro version. still this is a good wallpaper changer with some neat features. Available for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP.


Get it at http://jamesgart.com/wallpaperchanger/

Merge lots of PDFs into a single file with PDFMerge

Overview:

PdfMerge was written to fill the need for producing large PDF documents from multiple sources in an automated way.


Features:

• Allows the split and merge process to be driven from a list file
• Allows the creation of bookmark trees by specifying bookmarks to be added (bookmarks are also called outlines)
• Allows the import of bookmarks from the merged documents.
• Supports merging of large documents quickly
• Allows population of document title fields

Review:

If for some reason you need to be able to merge several PDFs together then PDFMerge is just what you are looking for. like the name says you can take any number of PDF documents and merge them into a single file. you can select the pages and bookmarks that will be merged which is very useful in keeping control of the output. Unfortunately it appears that this program can't merge password protected files which is a shame but i guess its understandable. PDFMerge is a great program for the merging of PDF files that just works. Available for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista.


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

Make awesome stick figures animations with Pivot Stickfigure Animator

Overview:

Pivot makes it easy to create stick-figure animations. you can build your own stick figures and load your own backgrounds. The animations can be saved as animated gifs to be used on webpages. an example animation is included.


Review:

Pivot Stickfigure Animator is a unique program, with it you can make 2D animations using stick figures. for example you can make something as simple as a guy twisting himself to fit a inside a box or a guy hitting another guy (yeah i did these two). of course if you have the imagination and time you can make something as complex as this little gem, is all up to you really.
Pivot Stickfigure animator has a simple user interface in which you can quickly move your figures and then add frames in order to make an animation. In addition you can create your own custom figures using the built-in editor which is a little cumbersome to use at first if you ask me.
When you finish an animation you can save it in a gif which is very handy if you want to show the world your creativity.
The only fault that i can find in this program is the absence of hotkeys which would make adding lots of frames less annoying and a lack of a tutorial in order to get you started in your first animation. Oh and apparently development has stopped on this program because the last release is from 2004 so don't expect any updates anytime soon. Available for Windows 98/2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.geocities.com/peter_bone_uk/pivot.html

Mount your CD/DVD images with SlySoft's Virtual CloneDrive

Overview:

Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Image files generated with CloneDVD or CloneCD can be mounted onto a virtual drive from your hard-disk or from a network drive and used in the same manner as inserting them into a normal CD/DVD drive.

Probably the best virtual drive software, Virtual CloneDrive allows you to enjoy the freedom of a virtual drive and is completely free.

Features:

• Supports all common image formats such as ISO, BIN, CCD
• Supports up to 8 virtual drives at the same time
• Easy to use - just double-click an image file to mount as a drive
• Virtual CloneDrive is freeware, you may use it at no cost.

Review:

Making images of your CD/DVDs makes the trouble of searching and inserting your favorite discs a thing of the past. of course you will need a competent program in order to mount those images, thankfully Virtual CloneDrive is an excellent choice for doing so. you can make up to 8 virtual drives which is more than enough for most people and mount images by simply double clicking them. Virtual CloneDrive can handle most common image formats including MDS images which is something i was worried about when i first tried the program.
This is a great image mounter that just works, i recommend it. Available for Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html

TUGZip is a great file compression manager

Overview:

TUGZip is a powerful award-winning freeware archiving utility for Windows® that provides support for a wide range of compressed, encoded and disc-image files, as well as very powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration.


Features:

• Supports ZIP, 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, BH, BZ2, CAB, CPIO, DEB, GCA, GZ, IMP, JAR, LHA (LZH), LIB, RAR, RPM, SQX, TAR, TGZ, TBZ, TAZ, YZ1 and ZOO archives.
• Supports BIN, C2D, IMG, ISO and NRG disc-images.
• Support for external plugins.
• Windows® shell integration, for example drag & drop, shell context menu and drop handlers.
• Create 7-ZIP, BH, BZ2, CAB, JAR, LHA (LZH), SQX, TAR, TGZ, YZ1 and ZIP archives.
• Script support which allows you to make automated backups.
• Basic features like: add, extract, delete, rename, run, view, checkout, install, test, comment, SFX, virus-scanning, disk-spanning and much more.
• Repair corrupted ZIP and SQX archives.
• Can extract multiple archives at once using Multi Extract.
• Encrypt archives using 6 different algorithms. Blowfish (128-bit), DES (56-bit), Triple DES (168-bit) and Rijndael (128-bit, 192-bit and 256-bit).
• Create self-extracting encrypted archives.
• Automatic updates using the "Web Update" function.

Review:

TUGZip is file compresion utility that has several uniques features that make it stand from the pack. for starters if you have Windows XP you can use 32 bit alpha blended icons which makes TUGZip's graphics look better. also you can compress files using the RAR and ACE formats using plugins (tough i haven't tried this yet) which is something that most others free compressions managers do not support and also there is script support for those of you that have some programming skills and want to make your custom scripts. other than that tugzip comes with the usual features like encryption support, self-extracting files and many more.
TUGZip is easy to use and has a nice interface in which you can use 3 different types of views: classic style, explorer style and combined style. personally i prefer the explorer style since its more useful for me. also you can quickly edit which entries shall be added to the context menu and change TUGZip's association with compressed files .
I can't find many faults with this program except maybe that when trying to use some tools like "repair archive" TUGZip doesn't automatically add the file you have currently have open, that's a nag in my part i guess. also the development has apparently stopped since the last version is from April tough the author says that he will star working on TUGZip 4 when he has the time.
So in my opinion this is a solid file compression manager that can be used everyday without problems. Available all versions of Windows.

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

Find and Launch anything inside your computer with Find and Run Robot (FAAR)

Overview:

Find and Run Robot (FARR) is a program for keyboard maniacs -- it uses an adaptive "live search" function to rapidly find programs and documents on your computer as you type.

Press your chosen hotkey to display the FARR window, then just start typing the first letters of the application you want to launch and the results appear instantly. Hit enter to launch the top result, or refine your search with special modifiers and commands.

FARR also lets you quickly run web searches, send email, manipulate files, control on-screen windows, and much more. Build and share custom commands or install plugins to add tons of new features, like live search features for your clipboard history and your internet bookmarks; a popup a calculator with history tape and persistant variables; and many more..


Features:

• Ready to run, right out-of-the-box with no configuration needed.
• The most customizable application of its kind, for those who love to tweak settings.
• Caches programs you launch for instantaneous repeat searches and adaptive scoring.
• Comes with dozens of built-in special alias commands that allow you to perform tons of different web searches and other operations.
• Create and share (xml) alias packs with your friends or download them from our site to add custom commands and menus.
• Install (open source) plugins to add advanced functionality.
• A dozen plugins are available at launch time, including a powerful clipboard monitor and searcher; a live calculator with history tape and persistant variables; a bookmark searcher plugin that supports firefox, internet explorer, and opera; plugins to manage running processes, uninstall programs, change the default printer, control external applications, and more.
• Low system overhead, fully portable and runnable from a USB thumbdrive, and doesn't mess with your registry.
• Drag+Drop results from the result view; quick right click to access file system properties or advanced functions.
• No file indices are used, so results are always up to date with minimal memory use.
• Choose from dozens of skins and customize the fonts sizes of all graphical elements of the user interface, or turn off skins completely and revert to default Windows user interface. Choose between a compact small-icon mode, or an easy-to-read large icon mode.
• Full directory browsing function with live search filtering -- manually browse and locate the files you are looking for.
• Customizable toolbar for common functions and operations (optional; with drag+drop support).
• Automatic updating for main program and plugins (optional).
• Customize hotkey triggers to launch and perform specific searches, or copy selected text to the clipboard at launch .
• Fully documented and actively developed with new features being added regularly based on user requests on our forum.
• Completely free; signup requested and donation recommended -- your donations fund continued development!

Review:

FAAR (Find and Run Robot) is pretty much one of the best application launchers that i have had the pleasure of using. Like Launchy it uses input from the keyboard in order to launch files or programs. it does this while using little system resources and can index things really fast, i searched and launched a program with FAAR that i had just installed, talk about speed! in addition to launching programs you can make web searches in sites like wikipedia, make quick notes and look words definitions. but the real fun is in the great list of plugins that can be used to greatly expand the funcionality of FAAR. you can add some really cool things like a calculator, a quick timer and access special Windows functions like shutdown only by typing "cmd".
If these functions are not enough you can make your own by creating aliases which are special words that can create special searches, for example you can make an alias in which you can use the search function of a website directly. for example an alias called elitefreeware + the keyword you are searching for can open your browser with the search results. adding these types of alias is easy but you will need to look up some documentation to create more complex aliases.
FAAR uses very little system resources, in my system it only used 3 to 7MB of RAM which is great! oh you can also use it in your pendrive which makes this a great portable application.
So if you would like to try an application launcher then i can't recommend enough Find and Run Robot, its truly awesome. Available for Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/findrun/

Optimize the RAM usage of program with Minimem...or don't

Overview:

Initially developed for Firefox only, Minimem now can reduce the memory footprint of any application. It runs in the background and can be set up to optimize as many proceses as you'd like, using a very intuitive graphical interface. Unlike other memory optimization tools, it gives you full control over what applications you want to optimize, when and how often.


Review:

Ram optimizers sound like a good thing but recently i have been seeing information that most of them do not actually work, tough i have had good results with CleanMem. anyway the reason i am bringing this up is because i have tried Minimem and the results are not very good in my opinion. Minimem will run in the background and will constantly try to optimize the RAM usage of the selected processes. since the website said it was designed with applications like Firefox in mind i decided to try it on Firefox 3, the results were a mixed bag. yes the RAM usage went down, sometimes even by half. however the RAM usage kept going up and down constantly and made Firefox sluggish until it started to hang so much it made close Minimem and restart firefox. Now you could see different results with different applications while using Minimem but i can't really recommend this program anytime soon considering what happened with Firefox. Available for all Windows versions but it has only been tested in Windows XP SP3 so keep that in mind if you are thinking of trying this program.


Get it at http://minimem.kerkia.net/

New translation gadget added to the blog

For my international visitors i have added a handy Google translation gadget in which you can translate this blog into several different languages. if you look to your right you can see it on the side panel of the blog. Just keep in mind that the translation may not be 100% perfect so don't be surprised when you encounter translation that makes absolutely no sense at all.
Oh and if you want to add a gadget like this one to your page you can do so here.

Quickly change files and folders attributes with Attribute Changer

Overview:

Attribute Changer is a power user tool to change all kind of file and folder attributes, date, time and even NTFS compression.

Basic features include changing file and folder attributes within en masse. More advanced features include relative and partial date/time stamp modifications. Realtime monitoring and reporting is also available. File and folder filters are available to include/exclude filesystem objects based on various criteria.


Review:

In computers attributes are labels that can show if a file or folder has any special property. for example the attribute "hidden" indicates that the file or folder is currently invisible and cannot be seen. these attributes can be changed in the command line or using the properties screen but the latter can't change all the attributes and make the changes permanent sometimes. this is where Attribute Changer comes in. with this program you can quickly change the attributes of files and folders and even the date of creation, modification and last access of them. furthermore
there is a handy filter in which you can include or exclude files and folders by name, date and attributes. you can even use wildcards so for example you can exclude all files with the name "document" on them by placing *document* in the exclude files filter.
Attribute Changer is a powerful and easy to use program but be careful when you use it, specially when changing the "system" attribute. Available for Windows 98/2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://webplaza.pt.lu/public/rpetges/windows/windows.html

Eight poll results

In response to the request i made in the poll "If you are a human subscribed to my RSS feed then please vote yes" 83 people voted, truthfully that was more than i expected. so i would like to take this moment to say thank you to all the people who voted in the poll. i now know that most of you are human, or really advanced spam bots whatever.
Strangely in Friday my feedburner counter showed that i only had like 70 subscribers , i think it must had been a bug since its fixed now and the counter shows like 300+ people right now.
So yeah that's all i have to say for now, you can close the browser window if you like.

Recover deleted files with Undelete Plus

Overview:

Undelete Plus is a quick and effective way to restore accidentally deleted files. It can also recover files that have been emptied from the Recycle Bin, permanently deleted files within Windows using the Shift + Delete, and files that have been deleted from within a Command Prompt.


Features:

Undelete Plus allows the following tasks to be performed:

- Recovery of deleted files from NTFS/NTFS5, FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 volumes.

- Restoring deleted files on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2003, Windows Vista.


Review:

File recovery programs are everywhere these days but Undelete Plus stands from the pack with some well though out features. for starters after you have searched for salvageable files you can quickly sort the results by using the left pane tree view that shows the various types of files like text , pictures, word documents ,Etc. you can narrow the search even more by filtering the results by file name, modification date and size. tough the size field can only be filtered in kilobytes not in megabytes or gigabytes which is a shame. while testing Undelete Plus i found that it could indeed recover recently deleted files but you got to keep in mind that if some time has passed the recovery might be impossible or the file will be unusable after it has been recovered.
Undelete Plus comes with multi language support and doesn't need installation to run so you can carry it with you all the time making this is a very handy tool. Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://undelete-plus.com/

Give some color to Firefox with the addon AnyColor

Overview:

A new look for a new Firefox.


Review:

The default Firefox look is shall we say... not very colorful. sure you can install some themes to fix this but what if the only thing you want is to change the color of Firefox itself? this is where AnyColor comes in. you can select from several presets or make your own look using custom colors, headers and footers. Unfortunately after installing this extension i had a noticeable drop in performance while using Firefox, it was not much but it was noticeable. since AnyColor is still in development i hope that the performance will get better on in the future but right now i think i am gonna pass on this extension. tough this could be related to my system since my computer is not very fast by today' s standards.
In conclusion if you want to change the color of Firefox AnyColor will do the trick but be ready for some slight drop in performance while browsing. Available for Firefox 3.0 and above.


Get it at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6991

(To install the extension you will need a Firefox addon account)

Change your most of your Windows icons with IconTweaker

Overview:

IconTweaker can change Windows icons in bulk.


Review:

The default icons in Windows XP are okay i guess but are not what i would call fashionable. if you would like to change them a good choice would be by using IconTweaker. with this program you can change most of the Windows icons at the same time which is a time saver. Unfortunately the default icons set are kinda ugly if you ask me but you can download additional icons sets from places like SkinBase. also this program's website is down so i guess that means its no longer being developed, a shame.
In conclusion IconTweaker is a decent way of changing your icons. Available for Windows Xp/Vista.


Get it at

Compile your C++programs with Bloodshed Dev-C++

Overview:

Bloodshed Dev-C++ is a full-featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the C/C++ programming language. It uses Mingw port of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) as it's compiler. Dev-C++ can also be used in combination with Cygwin or any other GCC based compiler.


Features:


- Support GCC-based compilers
- Integrated debugging (using GDB)
- Project Manager
- Customizable syntax highlighting editor
- Class Browser
- Code Completion
- Function listing
- Profiling support
- Quickly create Windows, console, static libraries and DLLs
- Support of templates for creating your own project types
- Makefile creation
- Edit and compile Resource files
- Tool Manager
- Print support
- Find and replace facilities
- CVS support


Review:

I am a wannabe programmer, i am just a newbie so i can't write any program like the ones i feature here on the blog. basically i suck right now but hopefully i can at least be a decent programmer in the future. Anyway the C++ compiler that i am using now called Bloodshed Dev-C++ and is actually pretty good. it comes with a lot features like syntax highlighting and many more but truthfully i don't pay mind to them since i am just scratching the surface when i am coding. Unfortunately this program is not being developed tough there is a succesor in the name of wxDev-C++ which uses Dev-C++ as its base.
In conclusion if you want an IDE/compiler you really can't go wrong with using Bloodshed Dev-C++. Available for Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP.


Get it at http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html

EncryptOnClick will encrypt your files using a simple interface

Overview:

EncryptOnClick, the safe and easy way to keep your data secure under lock and key.
Encrypt and protect your sensitive files with this easy to use freeware utility.


Features:


*A very secure encryption and decryption method is used (256-bit AES encryption).

*Files are both compressed & encrypted, which results in a smaller file.

*Password protected.

*Will encrypt single files or all files in a folder.

*Very simple to use interface.

*Can be used on a USB key.

*Fully Unicode enabled so filenames in any language can be encrypted.

*Fits on a floppy disk.

*EncryptOnClick will encrypt, decrypt, compress, and uncompress files which can also be opened and decrypted using third party programs like WinZip 9 (provided the correct password is used).

*Fully compatible with all of the encryption methods used by SyncbackSE.



Review:

Some encryption utilities can be overly complicated when the only thing you want is to encrypt a single file or folder, thanks to EncryptOnClick you can encrypt files or folders using an ultra simple interface. all you have to do is to select the file or folder that you want to encrypt and input a secure password (Be sure to remember the password otherwise you won't be able to decrypt the files) after that you can use the EncryptOnClick interface to decrypt the stuff you have encrypted or simply double click the encrypted files and input the password.
The quality of the encryption is good since its uses 256-bit AES encryption which is pretty secure, you can also carry EOC on your pendrive by copying some files after the installation so that makes this program very handy. the only flaw that i can find on the program is the total lack of settings but i guess this was to be expected since EOC was designed with simplicity on mind.
In conclusion this is a very simple to use encryption utility that can be used even by the most inexperienced of users. Available for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.2brightsparks.com/onclick/eoc.html

Can't delete a folder or file because Windows says its being used? then try Unlocker

Overview:

Unlocker will allow you to delete files or folders that windows says are being used.


Review:

Recently i was trying to delete a folder in Windows XP but Windows kept saying that it was being used by a program so i couldn't delete it. i am sure most of you encountered that problem at least once and wished there was a better way than rebooting the PC in order to delete a single file or folder. With Unlocker you can forget about that since it's the perfect solution for the case i mentioned before. After installation all you need to do is to right click on a file or folder and select the unlocker option, with the small menu that appears you can unlock or kill the processes that keep the file or folder from being deleted. you just need to be careful to only unlock or kill the processes that keep a file locked, usually this is caused by the explorer.exe process.
Unlocker only uses between 300 to 500KB of memory when running so don`t worry about hoging many system resources.
In conclusion this a great little program that fixes an annoying windows bug. Available for Windows XP/2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

Reorder your taskbar buttons with the lightweight Taskix

Overview:

Taskix can reorder the buttons in your Windows taskbar.


Review:

I dunno why Microsoft has never added something as useful and fundamental like the rearranging of the buttons in the windows taskbar, maybe they are just lazy.
Anyway you can fix this annoyance by using the ultra light Taskix. just run the executable to activate or deactivate Taskix, after that you can start reordering your taskbar buttons by simply dragging and dropping them.
In my system Taskix uses a small 1MB of memory which is great! you can keep it on your computer all the time without having to worry that it uses too much memory.
In conclusion Taskix is a great program that should had been added by default in Windows XP, i dunno if Vista can do it by default tough. Available for Windows XP/2003/Vista.


Get it at http://taskix.robustit.com/

Foo Audioscrobbler will add Last.fm support into Foobar 2000

Overview:

foo_audioscrobbler is a Last.fm/Audioscrobbler component for foobar2000 0.9.x.


Features:

* It works independent of the Last.fm client application.
* It supports the current submission protocol.
* It sends now playing notifications to your Last.fm profile.
* Optionally, it can import played tracks from your iPod via the foo_dop component.
* It has an own group on Last.fm.


Review:

If you are a user of Last.fm and you use Foobar 2000 then this the component that will allow the two to work together. Just download the executable that will install a small component so that you can enter your Last.fm user name and password. after that all of your played songs will be send to your Last.fm profile. it's very easy to install and configure.


Get it at http://www.mp3tag.de/en/fb2k.html

Paste text without the formatting using the lightweight program PureText

Overview:

Have you ever copied some text from a web page or a document and then wanted to paste it as simple text into another application without getting all the formatting from the original source? PureText makes this simple by adding a new Windows hot-key (default is WINDOWS+V) that allows you to paste text to any application without formatting.


Review:

I am not sure if any of you remember my review of Send To Notepad in which i mentioned i was glad that i found the program because it made my life when removing format from text. Truthfully that program was kinda cumbersome to use and i was always looking for something better, well now i have found it. Its name is PureText and pretty much does the same job as Send To Notepad except it does it faster because you don't have to paste text into the notepad and copy it again, PureText does this automatically. just copy a text and then simply press the hot-key (the default one is Windows+V) in the window in which you want to paste the text without the formatting, is easy and very quick to do. Since the program doesn't require any installation you can carry it in your pendrive or if you want to you can configure it to run at startup. which is a pretty good option because PureText doesn't use many system resources, just between 2 to 3MB in my PC.
In conclusion PureText can be a time saver for people that need to get rid of the formatting of copied text quickly, like for example me. Available for all Windows versions.


Get it at http://www.stevemiller.net/puretext/

DriveHQ provides free online file storage, backup, FTP hosting and email hosting

Overview:

One of the largest online storage service providers.


Review:

So i was in the need for a FTP server so that i could try the FTP clients that i have reviewed in the past and the best service that i found was DriveHQ. This website offers several services besides the FTP server like file sharing ,backup and email hosting but truthfully i only tried the FTP hosting in deep. you host whatever files you want in the FTP server with a maximum space of 1GB which is low, also outside people can't anonymously browser your online folders unless you have an account which sucks in my opinion. still you can freely let everyone download your uploaded files by just giving the URL of them.
In conclusion i feel that this is pretty good website that offers a lot services for free tough most of the good features are unlocked by paying, still it might be useful to you.


The URL is http://www.drivehq.com/

Easily attach files into Gmail with Gattach

Overview:

Many applications have the built-in capability to send emails. For example, you can send a document from Microsoft Word, a PDF from Adobe Acrobat, or photos from Windows Explorer. The problem is that these don't work with web-based email, including Gmail.

gAttach! allows you to easily attach files to new messages in Gmail or Google Apps Mail.

All the features available in Windows that were once only available to your desktop mail-using friends are now available to all Gmail users.

Review:

I hardly use the mail recipient found in the send to menu, mainly because i think outlook sucks and i prefer to just use Gmail instead of wasting time configuring outlook. Anyway if you want to use the mail recipient entry with Gmail then gAttach is just what you are looking for. This program will easily attach files to new messages in GMail that will be saved in the draft folder, its actually very easy and quickly to do. for extra convenience gAttach can install a Firefox extension that will open gmail right after you have attached a file, if you are going to do that then i suggest you use the "use HTTPS for added security".
In conclusion i feel that gAttach is a pretty good program if you have a Gmail account and are constantly attaching files, you can save lots of time using gAttach. Available for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista.


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

Restore the mailto entry in the send to menu with FixMailRecipient

Overview:

FixMailRecipient will restore the mail recipient entry in the send to menu.


Review:

So i deleted the mailto entry in my send to menu and that was a problem even tough i never use it i had to review a program that uses that entry, in other words i was screwed. thankfully while surfing the web i came across a website that showed several ways to fix my problem, the easiest method that i saw was to simply download FixMailRecipient. i executed it and my mailto entry was restored, it was very easy and quick.
Tough the readme says this program is meant for Windows Vista it worked just fine in Windows XP. So if for some reason you want to restore the mailto entry in the send to menu FixMailRecipient is a good choice. Available for Windows XP/Vista.


Get it at

Encrypted FTP provides extra security when using the FTP protocol

Overview:

EFTP = Encrypted FTP

Based on the RFC 959 standard of FTP, it incorporates RSA encryption and Blowfish encryption to achieve fast and secure transfers of data over any TCP/IP network, including The Internet.


Review:

Encrypting sensitive information is a good way to keep them secure from prying hands. Now with Encrypted FTP you can do the same when transferring files using the FTP protocol. this program will make your connections secure using public encryptions keys, tough you don't even need to use the encryption since EFTP can work as a standard FTP client.
Keep in mind that i didn't have the chance to try an encrypted connection to a FTP server because i didn't have access to a FTP server that supported encryption, but EFTP worked pretty well and was easy to use when i tried without the encryption.
In conclusion if you have a FTP server in which you can use encrypted connections then EFTP might be a good choice for you, otherwise you can still use it as a competent FTP client.
Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://www.encrypted-ftp.com/

Listen to your music with style (if you have the time and will) using Foobar2000

Overview:

Foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include full unicode support, ReplayGain support and native support for several popular audio formats.


Features:

* Audio formats supported natively: MP1, MP2, MP3, MP4, MPC, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC / Ogg FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, AU, SND, CDDA, WMA.

* More audio formats supported through optional components, official or third-party.

* Full unicode support.

* Customizable user interface layout new in version 0.9.5.

* Advanced tagging capabilities.

* Support for ripping Audio CDs as well as transcoding all supported audio formats using the Converter component. Read more...

* ReplayGain support - both playback and calculation.

* Customizable keyboard shortcuts.

* Open component architecture allowing third-party developers to extend functionality of the player.


Review:

You have probably heard of Foobar 2000 when surfing the web, it's the cool player that looks awesome in screenshots like this and this and just simply looks cool. So you want to try it out and are shocked when you realize that Foobar 2000 doesn't look anything near as awesome as the screenshots i linked to, it can look like this tough if you put enough effort into it.... and that's where the strength and weakness of foobar is in my opinion, you can make it look exactly as you want but you must spend hours or even days to make it look as good as some of setups some people have, of course you can download some pre-made configuration but some require specific versions of Foobar 2000 and that can be also a pain to configure in my experience.
Tough adding extra components is a different matter, you can just download a component DLL and drag and drop it into Foobar's component folder. you can easily add cool components such as a scrolling lyrics panel, a popup with song information, a quick search bar,Etc. with a little work i made my Foobar 2000 installation look like this only by using components and changing the colors that Columns UI uses. You can get a pretty good list of components here.
As a music player Foobar 2000 is pretty good but for some reason there's a slight pause when it starts playing a song, it goes away when i keep the foobar windows but it is still annoying. also be sure to disable ReplayGain unless you want it to mess with the volume of your tracks since that's happenned to me and i like to have my volume unchanged thank you very much and be sure to have your music properly tagged since Foobar 2000 relies heavily on tags.
Oh and the memory usage of the program is very good, in my system it uses between 4 to 6MB of RAM which is very good but keep in mind that this number can go up if you install extra components.
In conclusion Foobar 2000 is very good music player in which you can spend hours trying to make it look as you want or instead you can keep it simple like me and save yourself some headaches, its all up to you. Available for Windows 2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.foobar2000.com/

Keep and eye on your CPU and RAM usage with CPUMon

Overview:

CPUMon is a simple little gadget to monitor CPU performance from your desktop. It displays a real-time graph of CPU performance as well as current usage indicator. The display supports custom colors, alpha-blending, user defined update rates and more. Some of the features: transparency, alpha-blending, customizable colors, layout presets, form locking, constantly updated CPU speed for Mobile processors, plus Tray Icon mode and Statistics, can also display Memory Usage, etc... Comes with "Carbonsoft cxCpu Processor Detection Toolkit", which provides: * CPU Explorer - detailed CPU information, supports multiple CPUs; * CPU Features - lists supported CPU features.


Review:

Would like to have little graph in your desktop showing your CPU and RAM usage? well you are in luck because CPUMon does just that and more. The graph can be placed in any place of your screen and can use custom colors tough it does take a bit of space in this mode but i guess this is not a problem if you have widescreen monitor unlike me (i use a 1024x768 resolution) because you can afford having firefox opened without using the full screen also you can use CPUMon from the system tray but that is not that useful since you don't get detailed breakdown of what is using what like SysTrayMeter does which has two convenient bars splitted down the middle onme for the CPU and the other for the RAM, i wish CPUMon had that.
Other than the monitoring CPUMon comes with CPU features explorer which i bet the 99% of you will not use and a somewhat handy CPU and RAM statistics page that will let you know the minimum, the maximum and the average.
In conclusion CPUMon is a pretty good real time monitoring utility tough i feel having it in the system tray is pretty useless, the graph is more way more useful. Available for Windows 98/ME/2000/2003/XP.


Get it at http://www.den4b.com/projects.php


PS:If you liked this program consider donating to Denis Kozlov since he also makes the awesome ReNamer, i would donate but i am poor and can't use Paypal. Alternatively if you are hot girl try sending sexy pictures of yourself, i bet that would make him happy...unless he is gay or something.

Do i really have 240 subscribers?

So according to my feedreader counter i have 240 RSS subscribers. I found that funny because i haven't been promoting the blog at all recently so i am wondering if those 240 subscribers are actual living human beings. In order to find that out i am placing a poll in which all you have to do is vote "yes" hopefully with this i can know more accurately the number of people that read my stuff.
Why does it matter? well truthfully it doesn't its just that i want to know that's all, so vote now!

Key Launch will launch all of your programs, documents or files with just your keyboard

Overview:

Forget your start menu and the icons on your desktop - launch programs and documents from your keyboard, with just a few keystrokes, by typing abbreviations. Just type a few letters of what you are looking for and Key Launch finds it - enter e.g. 'c' to open the 'calculator'.

You can add aliases, e.g. you can define that "w" means "Microsoft Word", and from now on, you can simply hit Ctrl+Space, then 'w' and enter to open MS Word, it's much faster than browsing through your start menu.


Review:

Key launch is a Launchy wannabe, there i said it. Like launchy this program allows you launch programs, documents and files using only your keyboard. Also like launchy Key launch has some other functions for other than indexing your stuff, for example you can use it as a calculator, a quick spreadsheet for adding numbers,Etc. You can also make user scripts called DNM that can extent the functionality of the program if you have will and desire to do so.
Tough Key Launch does a lot things good there are some things that i just don't like. For starters you need to press ESC to close Key launch when trying to search something, the default CTRL+SPACE for opening Key Launch doesn't close it and that is something i miss from Launchy, tough there is a user script that supposedly fix this i can't make it work, hopefully they will add this in a future version. Also for some reason when hiding the Key Launch interface the focus doesn't return to the prevously used window, i don't remember if this was the case in Launchy but sure is annoying. Oh and the user scripts are confusing to install/add, i wish they could improve this in a future version.
In conclusion while Key Launch as an application launcher is good i feel it needs a lot more refining before it can beat Launchy. Available for Windows XP/NT/2000/2003/Vista


Get it at http://www.konradp.com/products/keylaunch/