RegSeeker is a good companion for the Windows registry

Overview:

RegSeeker is a perfect companion for your Windows registry !
RegSeeker includes a powerful registry cleaner and can display various informations like your startup entries, several histories (even index.dat files), installed applications and much more ! With RegSeeker you can search for any item inside your registry, export/delete the results, open them in the registry. RegSeeker also includes a tweaks panel to optimize your OS ! Now RegSeeker includes a file tool to search for duplicate files, bad shortcuts and more !


Review:

RegSeeker is a small utility for the Windows registry. With it you can clean your registry, find entries and even tweak some of your Windows settings. RegSeeker can create backups before deleting registry entries which is something that is useful if you delete something important. RegSeeker doesn't need to be installed in your computer so it can be carried in a portable device. In conclusion RegSeeker is a pretty good program that can come in handy when working with registry however you gotta know what you are doing otherwise you can screw up your Windows installation. Available for Windows 98/2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm

Fully customize your Windows XP installation with nLite

Overview:

Have you ever wanted to remove Windows components like Media Player, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, Messenger...
How about not even to install them with Windows ?
nLite is a tool for pre-installation Windows configuration and component removal at your choice. Optional bootable image ready for burning on media or testing in virtual machines.
With nLite you will be able to have Windows installation which on install does not include, or even contain on media, the unwanted components.

Features:

• Service Pack Integration
• Component Removal
• Unattended Setup
• Driver Integration
  
• Hotfixes Integration
  
• Tweaks
• Services Configuration
• Patches
• Bootable ISO creation

Review:

nLite is the perfect tool for people that want a custom made Windows XP installation. With it you can integrate drivers, hotfixes and patches into the Windows XP disc installer. If you are feeling specially adventurous you can even remove some XP components, services and even add your own favorite programs so that they are installed right along with other Windows programs. nLite is pretty easy to use tough you gotta know know what you are doing otherwise you may end up facing a blue screen of death so i recommend that you first try your creations using Virtualbox or other virtualization program.
In conclusion Nlite is a program that i found to be pretty awesome since it saves you so much time that would be spend in downloading hotfixes and service packs trough the Windows update program. Available for Windows 2000/2003/XP and requires the .NET framework 2.0 .


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

Thank you!

Today i got payed the grand sum of 102,29 dollars that google sent me. It's all thanks to the people that visit elite freeware and were kind enough to click the ads that are in the site. So i just wanted to take the time to simply say: thank you all! i started this blog in november of last year with the simple goal of getting some money however that took less importance when i realized that i really liked writing about freeware programs. I think i do a decent job and i hope my readers find the programs that i talk about useful. Anyway with the money that i got i bought a video card for my PC so if you don't see me updating the blog this week is because i am an idiot and blew up the PC when installing the card. Let's all hope that won't happen because if it happens i am so screwed......

Evil Player plays your music while keeping it's memory footprint low

Overview:

Evil Player is a fast, powerful and flexible media player for windows. Some of Evil Player's key features include Shoutcast, Icecast and Icecast2 support, low memory footprint and native support for several popular formats (MP3, MP2, MP1, OGG, AIFF and MOD).


Features:

• Easy to use
• Small (less than 1MB!)
• Audio formats supported: WAV, OGG, MP1, MP2, MP3, MOD, XM, IT, S3M, MTM, UMX, MO3
• Supports BASS plug-ins
• Low memory footprint
• Radio streaming (SHOUTcast/ICEcast/ICEcast2)
• SHOUTcast recording
• Completely free

Review:

Evil Player is a donationware music player with a very small memory footprint. It's not pretty like other players but it gets the job done. Just add a folder and play your songs. Unfortunately Evil Player doesn't support tags when viewing your playlist which can suck if you only use tags and keep your song's filenames all messed up. Evil player supports a wide variety of formats out of the box and you can even add more trough a plugins pack that is available for download. Oh besides playing music you can stream and record radio streams which is something that i have no use for however someone might like that. Finally Evil Player has last.fm support built-in which is great and something that more music players should have because i use last.fm a lot.
Evil Player used a little over 1Mb when playing music minimized to the system tray in my system which is awesome compared to other bloated software like Itunes. Oh and you can carry it around on your pendrive since Evil Player is fully portable. So in conclusion i liked this program even tough it's ugly because it's lightweight and it gets the job done. Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://www.hakeem.gigahost.dk/index.php

Share any song with Tinysong.com

Tinysong.com is a search engine for songs. Just look for any artist or song and select a result. The URL in which you can listen the song shall be automatically copied to the clipboard making it easy to share links friends ,family,lovers,Etc. tinysong is a usefulway of showing someone a cool tune that you heard somewhere.


URL: www.tinysong.com

CD Recovery Toolbox Free will recover files from scratched CD/DVDs

Overview:

Recovery Toolbox for CD Free has been developed for recovering data from corrupted media of all types that are most common nowadays: CD, DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, etc. The program allows you to recover files of any types. The tool completely scans disks and saves as much information as possible. During the recovery process, Recovery Toolbox for CD Free uses a lot of different algorithms, which considerably increases the amount and quality of recovered data.


Features:

• Recovering corrupted data from all most common types of media for today
• Working with data that became corrupted both after a physical damage of the media and due to program errors
• Allowing the user to completely control the recovery process
• Giving the user as detailed report about the data recovery process as possible

Review:

CD Recovery Toolbox Free is a file recovery tool made specifically for optical media. Unlike the previously reviewed Copy Cat 2.0 CD Recovery Toolbox Free can select more than one file for recovery making the recovery process for whole CDs a lot less painful than with Copy Cat 2.0. CD Recovery Toolbox Free is easy to use and was able to recover files from a scratched CD that i have making this a good utility for recovering important files that otherwise would be lost forever. Available for all versions of Windows.


Get it at http://www.recoverytoolbox.com/cd.html

Portable Start Menu is a simple and lightweight application launcher for USB flash drives

Overview:

Portable Start Menu is a simple and free start menu application that can be installed on USB sticks or local PCs.
Organize your programs in a simple menu system and launch them via a tray icon. If you close Portable Start Menu on an USB-Stick, running applications can be closed automatically, too.



Features:

• Organize and launch applications via a tray menu
• Closes running applications on USB-Sticks automatically
• Checks if an application has been changed before execution
• Quick Start functionality to start applications with a few keystrokes
• Runs on USB-Sticks without leaving any traces on a host PC
• Portable Start Menu is Freeware

Review:

Portable application launchers for pen drives are all the rage these days. Launchers like the portableapps.com suite install a good looking menu and specials folders for documents, videos,Etc. Truthfully i always found that having specialized folders was little bit of overkill because i just wanted to launch portable software. So i was happy to find a more simple alternative in Portable Start Menu. You can install Portable Start Menu in your pendrive and start adding portable programs by just placing the executables in your portable device (i suggest you place each app in it's own folder to keep things organized) and add them to the Portable Start Menu by doing a scan for EXE files which is a fast method. Tough the portableapps.com launcher did this automatically. Also unlike the portableapps.com suite you won't see a menu when you run PSM because the launcher is placed directly into the system tray, you can set up a hot key for showing a quick start bar in which you can quickly search programs tough. Some of you may not like this, but i liked it because it keeps things simple and unobtrusive. Finally you can quickly close all open programs and safely eject your portable device with a single click which is something found very useful compared to the standard way of removing your USB flash drive.
In conclusion i found Portable Start Menu easy to use and a decent addition to my pendrive. available for all Windows Versions.


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

Get Aimp2 working with last.fm

Maybe you were planning to use the music player Aimp2 but decided not to when you found out that there wasn't any last.fm support by default. Well suffer no more because today i will let you know a simple method in you can scroobble your played tracks in Aimp2 to last.fm.
First download and place the following plugin to the Aimp2 installation folder (by default C:\Program Files\AIMP2\PlugIns)



Then download and install the official last.fm client. After the installation enter your username and password to your last.fm account. Click next and the program will detect your media players, Aimp2 won't be listed so click on "add" and go to Aimp2's program folder and select the Aimp2 executable (aimp2.exe), finally select winamp in "player type". Now every time that you start Aimp2 the last.fm client should start too. This should allow you to scrobble tracks while using Aimp2.


Via www.paintbits.com

Avast! Virus Cleaner will find and remove worms and viruses from your PC

Overview:

Avast! Virus Cleaner is available free for every user. This tool will help you remove selected worm infections from your computer. If, despite all the security measures you take, your computer gets infected by a virus or worm, it is necessary to disinfect your system somehow. While for some viruses the only 100% reliable method of disinfection is restoring your system from backups, for many common infections this is not really necessary and the virus/worm can be removed quite easily.


Review:

Let's face it, if you are using Windows sooner or later bad stuff will probably get inside your PC even if you are using an antivirus, thankfully Avast! Virus Cleaner can save you a a hard drive format. Avast! Virus Cleaner can clean some commonly know viruses, worms and other known infections. Just run a scan and Avast! Virus Cleaner will try to find and remove malicious software in your PC. Keep in mind that Avast! Virus Cleaner is limited in it's scope and shouldn't be used as a replacement of a fully featured anti-virus scanner like Avast!,AVG,Etc.
Avast! Virus Cleaner is portable and is available for all Windows versions.


Get it at http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-virus-cleaner.html

Hey i got an email address!

So some of you might have noticed that i had placed in this blog an email address where people could contact me. That was a long time ago and i removed it (sorry to those people that wrote me and didn't receive a response) That's because i had lost the password and couldn't remember the answer to the secret question, yes i am an idiot. Anyway just recently i could access my account again and i though i'll let you people know. You can reach me at:


Feel free to send links to cool free programs, viral videos or nigerian scams. Oh and if you are feeling lonely we can also cyber, we don't have to go that far tough. You can just send me naked pictures of yourself. I promise it's only for research, research about people that send naked photos of themselves.

UpdateStar will find updates for your installed programs

Overview:

UpdateStar is free software that lets you stay up-to-date with the personal software installations on your computer. It eases your life as a software user and makes sure you always have the most up-to-date software versions. UpdateStar covers all of your freeware, shareware, demos, commercial software, and includes special offers.


Review:

Going to a program's website to check if there is a new version can be a bother, specially if you have a large quantity of software installed in your machine. Thankfully with UpdateStar you can solve this. UpdateStar will search for all the paid and free software currently installed in your computer and will let you know if there are any updates available, if there are you can quickly go to the program's page and download the new version. In my computer UpdateStar managed to recognize most of my installed software and most of the current updates available too which is great. Of course there was some instances in which UpdateStar didn't know about a certain program or the latest update wasn't listed and this is where you can help if you have some free time. You see UpdateStar relies heavily on user contributions for information about programs and updates, so if you have some free time help fill information about your favorite programs in the UpdateStar website. You can keep UpdateStar running on the system tray so that it can look for software updates daily,weekly or monthly. Also it can work as basic program uninstaller which is a little handy if you ask me.
UpdateStar works well most of the time and is easy to use, tough i had some problems with the system tray icon not showing up. Maybe it's because i have too many system tray icons, anyway UpdateStar still worked well regardless. Available for Windows 2000/XP/Vista.


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

Connect to FTP servers with the lightweight and portable Core FTP LE

Overview:

Now you can download Core FTP LE - free Windows software that includes the client FTP features you need. Features like SFTP (SSH), SSL, TLS, IDN, browser integration, site to site transfers, FTP transfer resume, drag and drop support, file viewing & editing, firewall support, custom commands, FTP URL parsing, command line transfers, filters, and much, much more!

This free, secure FTP client gives you a fast, easy, reliable way to update and maintain your website via FTP. It also provides a secure method (via SSL, TLS, or SFTP) to upload / download files to and from FTP servers. Check out the list of features and you'll find almost every feature you need, all in a free ftp program. There are no popup ads, advertising or spyware and you're never asked or reminded to register.


Features:

* Queueing of multiple FTP transfers on multiple sites
* Sessions to save FTP transfers for later resuming
* Recursive uploading, downloading, and deleting
* Optional reconnecting of lost connections
* Legacy SFTP client support and options
* Low memory footprint (~4mb connected - most clients are 8-12mb)
* All this and more for free - Try and find another commercially supported free ftp client with SSL & SFTP (there aren't any!).


Review:

Core FTP LE is an FTP client for Windows. Like most FTP clients it will allow you to transfer files from and to FTP servers on the internet, it also has some useful features like firewall support, site to site transfers and much more. Core FTP LE is really to use, when it starts it will show a site manager in which you can quickly add your sites or connect to them inmediately which is pretty handy. You can queue several transfers and run them with only single click making transfering lots of files a breeze. Core FTP LE is also fully portable. All you have to do is copy the installation folder of Core FTP LE to your pendrive or better yet install it directly to your portable device. Finally go the Core FTP LE folder that is in your portable device and using the command prompt run "coreftp.exe -flash" without the quotes obviously. If that's too complicated for you then right click the coreftp.exe and make a shortcut, then right click the created shortcut and select "properties" in the target field box add -flash right at the end and voila! you should have your own portable Core FTP installation.
Core FTP LE is a pretty good program that should make your life easier if you make a lot of FTP transfers. Available for Windows 98/2000/XP.


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

Get detailed information about your PC and run benchmarks with PC Wizard

Overview:

PC WIZARD 2008 is also an utility designed to analyze and benchmark your computer system. It can analyze and benchmark many kinds of hardware, such as CPU performance, Cache performance, RAM performance, Hard Disk performance, CD/DVD-ROM performance, Removable/FLASH Media performance, Video performance, MP3 compression performance.


Features:

• Can save, print, e-mail a report
• Can save a TXT, RTF, HTML, PDF or CSV report
• Can export any graphics as BMP file
• Can export text and graphic with the clipboard
• Web update Wizard
• Communicate with Motherboard Monitor
• Dump (Hardware registers, System BIOS, video BIOS ...)

Review:

PC Wizard is an utility for the detailed gathering of information about your PC. It can show both hardware and software information about your system like for example your motherboard model, brand of the CPU, multimedia codecs,Etc. There is also a wide variety of Benchmarking tools in which you can test your machine with tests for the CPU,RAM,hard drive,Etc. The results of these test can be compared with the results of various types of computers in order to check how strong or weak your PC is compared to them.
PC Wizard is fully portable so you can carry it in your pendrive and just works as it should. Available for all versions of Windows.


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

Create a PDF with only images using Graphics2PDF

Overview:

Free PDF file creator. Convert your images to PDF document. Supported formats: BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF.

Drag'n'drop your image files into Graphics2PDF, then click "Save as PDF". That's it.

Review:

If for some reason you need to put only images into a PDF then Graphics2PDF is just the program for the task at hand. Simply drag and drop the images that you desire inside Graphics2PDF's window and rearrange them using the arrows located below them. Then simply click" save as pdf" to get your PDF document with the images you selected. Graphics2PDF is very easy to use and just works as it should so if you are ever in the need for making a PDF full of images then Graphics2PDF is what you are looking for.

Get it at http://www.imposant.com/products/image2pdf.htm

Time Trek is a clock, countdown timer and an alarm clock all in one

Overview:

A Simple clock, with some very interesting features not found in any other clock program. Displays the time, date, day of week. Includes an Alarm, plus a Countdown & Countup type display.


Features:

• Display date & time, and current day of week(of course)
• Display of TimeTrek almost completely customizable
• Multiple Alarms(Hourly/Daily and Single Alarms)
• Play MP3, WAV or Midi files for Alarm(s), and/or Countdown Timer
• Countdown/Countup to/from selected date & time (to the second)
• Small Desktop footprint
• Works with Multiple users(each with their own settings)
• Minimize to System Tray(next to clock in Taskbar) & Minimize at Startup
• Displays current phase of Moon
• Dock at corner of screen(with regards to Taskbar placement)
• Works with other country settings besides U.S.
• Option to change Time/Date(uses Control Panel Applet)
• Analog clock display with color change options
• Display Date in both US and Non-US formats.
• See History page for full listing of updates and changes

Review:

Time Trek is a digital clock that sits in your desktop and displays the time. It also comes with an alarm feature that lets you setup several alarms, however it doesn't support custom messages. A simple message box with name of the alarm will be displayed a long with a music file if you prefer. There is also a countdown timer which can be shown right below Timer Trek's clock , unfortunately it can't show the years or month remaining which is hugely disappointing for a simply countdown timer.
Timer Trek's interface is clumsy and it was confusing at first because there was no indication that you have to click the clock or moon icon to make the main menu appear, this aspect of the program could use some very needed work. The memory usage was decent at 7Mb on my system which is okay i guess.
In conclusion Time Trek is a digital clock with some interesting features but is rough around teh edges. Available for Windows 98/2000/2003/XP.


Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/fbrower21/progs/

Recover your software keys with SoftKey Revealer

Overview:

SoftKey Revealer, reveals the CD-Key and Serials for installed softwares on computer. It also saves your money and time, free and easy to use.


Features:

- Displays over 700 software products
- Save to Text or Word (Word XP/2003/2007 only)
- Print
- Displays for 64bit-Edition releases


Review:

If you visited my blog a couple of hours earlier you might have seen the post where i have talked about Game Key Revealer, well SoftKey Revealer is basically the same as Game Key Revealer except for software. With it you can see all the keys of the programs that you have installed in Windows and save them into a text file. It was able to sucessfuly show the key for the only commercial program that i have in Windows XP which is great! SoftKey Revealer supports over 700 software products so your favorite programs may be supported, i can't be sure for certain tough. SoftKey Revealer is a good way of saving your software keys in case you loose them. Available for all Windows versions.


Get it at http://cakirbey.googlepages.com/softkeyrevealer

Recover keys for games that have been installed in Windows using Game Key Revealer

Overview:

Game Key Revealer, reveals the CD-Key and Serials for installed games on computer. If you lost legal CD-Keys or Serials of your purchased games, you can find them with Game Key Revealer.


Features:

- Displays over 500 games
- Save to Text or Word (Word XP/2003/2007 only)
- Print
- Displays for 64bit-Edition releases


Review:

Losing the CD/DVD key of your favorite game because you lost the box and didn't save the key somewhere can be awful since there is no easy way to recover it. Game Key Revealer can prevent this by searching keys for games that are installed in Windows and save them in a text or word document. However if you lost the game box and you don't have installed the game in your PC you are totally screwed so use Game Key Revealer before you loose your stuff.
Because i don't have any games that use game keys in my system i couldn't test Game Key Revealer properly but according to the creator it supports over 500 games by the most popular developers. So give Game Key Revealer a try in order to backup your game keys. Available for all versions of Windows.



Get it at http://cakirbey.googlepages.com/

Free Pascal is a free open source, cross platform pascal compiler

Overview:

Free Pascal (aka FPK Pascal) is a 32 and 64 bit professional Pascal compiler. It is available for different processors: Intel x86, Amd64/x86_64, PowerPC, PowerPC64, Sparc, ARM. The discontinued 1.0 version also supports the Motorola 680x0. The following operating systems are supported: Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X/Darwin, Mac OS classic, DOS, Win32, Win64, WinCE, OS/2, Netware (libc and classic) and MorphOS.


Features:

The language syntax has excellent compatibility with TP 7.0 as well as with most versions of Delphi (classes, rtti, exceptions, ansistrings, widestrings, interfaces). A Mac Pascal compatibility mode is also provided to assist Apple users. Furthermore Free Pascal supports function overloading, operator overloading, global properties and other such features.


Review:

If you need a pascal compiler then Free Pascal is a solid choice. With it you can write and run programs written in the Pascal programming language. I mostly used it for school purposes but it served me well when i was writing some simple programs. The one thing that i really didn't like is that the Free Pascal work window is very long, which is something that sometimes made the bottom bar being cut off when using the compiler. Tough you may not have that problem if you use a resolution higher than 1024x768 which is what i use. Other then that i think that Free Pascal is a solid compiler for learning use or for writing complex programs. Available for the most common operating systems.


Get it at http://www.freepascal.org/

Check for malicious activity in your PC with HijackThis

Overview:

HijackThis™ is a free utility which quickly scans your Windows computer to find settings that may have been changed by spyware, malware or other unwanted programs. HijackThis creates a report, or log file, with the results of the scan.

IMPORTANT: HijackThis does not determine what is good or bad. Do not make any changes to your computer settings unless you are an expert computer user.

Advanced users can use HijackThis to remove unwanted settings or files.

Not an expert? Just save the HijackThis report and let a friend with more troubleshooting experience take a look. A large community of users participates in online forums, where experts help interpret HijackThis scan results to clean up infected computers.



Review:

Sometimes you may suspect that there is something wrong in Windows even tough have run a scan with your favorite anti-virus without any results of viruses or malware. In these cases HijackThis can help in scanning your computer for settings that have been changed in Windows. HijackThis doesn't tell which stuff is good or bad tough so you will need to upload the log files from a scan to a place like www.hijackthis.de and check which stuff is considered dangerous. Of course you could also post the log files in a spyware removal forum so that experts can take a look.
HijackThis is a very powerful tool in the search for malware, spyware and other really bad stuff. Available for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en-US/tools/security_tools/hijackthis

Download MP3s directly from the web, rip tracks from internet radio and more with the incredible Clickster

Overview:

Clickster is the essential, three-in-one application for every lover of music. Clickster enables you to easily search for and download mp3 files from the Internet in a totally legal and safe environment. Because Clickster sources mp3's which are hosted on web servers, you can expect download speeds which put P2P networks to shame. With currently over 30 million tracks available to download (and growing), we're certain Clickster will be able to locate the music you really want to listen to and there are no dead/broken links.


Features:

* Search and Download MP3's from the Internet (NOT Peer-2-Peer)
* 3 X the Search Results of Limewire**
* Downloads 5 X Faster than Limewire
* Rip Tacks from thousands of Internet Radio Stations
* Download Tracks from MySpace* Music
* Compile Playlists and embed them, with player, into own pages
* Download Tracks Directly onto iPod or MP3-Player
* Clickster can be run from a USB Data-Stick
* 100% Clean - No Adware, Spyware or Malware
* 100% Legal
* PRIVATE - Use of Clickster cannot be detected by ISP's or Recording Industry snoops


Review:

Clickster is the perfect tool for the music lover that wants to download MP3s but doesn't want to install one of the many P2P programs available. Clickster's primary use is for searching MP3s that are available for direct download all over web. Just type the artist's name or song title and hit search and Clickster will download the track directly into your hard drive or portable media with speeds much faster that you would probably get when using Ares or programs like it. Clickster was surpringly accurate in my tests and was able to find a large variety of songs. Thankfully there is a flash player that lets you preview tracks before you start the download. You can also rips tracks from internet radios and myspace pages painlessly. Finally you can make custom playlist with the songs you have found using Clickster and embed them in your website for people to play them, which is pretty cool if you ask me (Maybe i should do it on my blog?) also Clickster is fully portable so you can carry it around with you.
Oh and if you are interested in having more features there is a Pro version that is even more powerful that the standard Clickster, of course it will cost you money. Unfortunately an ad for the pro version will appear every time that you start Clickster after you have used it for awhile.It sucks but in my opinion a small ad is something i can endure when using Clickster.
Clickster is an excellent program for downloading music, but i am sure none of you would do that since all my readers are law abiding citizens that wouldn't even think about stealing music even tough you can't get caught by the big fat cats of the RIAA while using Clickster unlike some P2P programs that are out there. So yeah don't even think about using Clickster for illegal purposes, ok? ;-) Available for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.remlapsoftware.com/clickster.htm

Copy Cat can retrieve important files from scratched CD/DVDs or hard drives

Overview:

Copy Cat 2.0 actually skip the bytes which are not readable from file and copy all other bytes therefore it extracts max data which is normally not done by windows copy operation. Copy Cat can be helpful at times when you want to copy a CD or DVD which is scratched,when you want to copy data from harddisk area which is partially not readable , when you want to copy data from floppy which is currently not being copied by windows .So download and enjoy.


Features:

# Copies your oldest collection of CDs and DVDs
# It even tries to copy a highly damaged media byte by byte
# It gives you the option to skip the bytes if bad area found
# It is a very fast data recovery tool
# It also tries to copy damaged files on your hard disk
# Unlike Windows copy operation it does not stop the copy if bad area found


Review:

I bet that you save data on CD or DVDs all the time , so it can really suck when your optic disk gets scratched and you can't recover your files. Thankfully with Copy Cat you can at least have a chance to recover your stuff. Unlike Windows, Copy Cat doesn't stop copying when it encounters a bad sector. It can keep going by skipping bytes and just copy what is readable. Copy Cat was able to recover some photos on a badly scratched CD of mine without too much trouble. Unfortunately Copy Cat can only recover one file at a time making a recovery of a large number of files a very time consuming process. I wish they could add batch processing in a future version. Available for Windows XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.vcsoftwares.com/cc.html

PIXresizer is a simple and fast image resizing program

Overview:

PIXresizer is a photo resizing program to easily create web and e-mail friendly versions of your images with reduced file sizes.
The reduced files are saved in a different folder, so your original images are not altered at all. PIXresizer offers several different resizing methods to choose from and can automatically recognize image sizes to calculate the best fit. In addition, it can convert between image formats (JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG and TIFF), rotate images, convert to grayscale and resize multiple images in batch mode. A great companion for webmasters and digital photographers.


Features:

* Simple Four-Step Workflow
* Easy 'Apply recommended' option to make it even more user friendly
* Works with single files as well as with multiple files all at once
* Option to convert between graphics formats (.bmp, .gif, .jpg, .png, and .tif)
* Can be used to create thumbnails (takes one move on a slider)
* Smart Ratio Calculation (image proportions can be overruled by the user)
* EXIF support, JPEG compression, TIFF compression, DPI settings
* Runs on Windows 98/ME/NT4/2000/2003/XP/Vista

Review:

PIXresizer is a very simple image resizing program. Just select any number of picture and choose the format, new size and finally click "save pictures" to resize your pics. The interface is pretty simple but when you are resizing several pictures you can only choose the width not the height, PIXresizer calculates the height automatically which is bad if you want a specific resolution. Other than that i can't find much fault with PIXresizer except that lacks more advanced features like watermarking and such. I think it's best suited for casual use. Available for Windows 98/ME/NT4/2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer_plus.htm

Visualize what files and folders are using the most space in your hard drive with JDiskReport

Overview:

JDiskReport enables you to understand how much space the files and directories consume on your disk drives, and it helps you find obsolete files and folders.

The tool analyses your disk drives and collects several statistics which you can view as overview charts and details tables.

This is ad-free uncrippled no-charge binary multi-platform software that never expires


Review:

So for awhile now i have felt that WindirStat was too slow on my system and i wanted to try a new program to check out my disk usage. So i ended up finding JDiskReport which is a java written program made specifically for that. JDiskReport will give a graphical representation of the space used by files and folder in a disk using pie/line/bar charts. You can also view a list of the top 50 biggest files found on the hard drive. Also charts for the distribution of the modification date, size and file type are available. That last one makes finding what types of files are using the most space in your hard drive very easy.
Unfortunately JDiskReport has some limitation in the form of not being able to directly delete files and not showing the free space in the hard drive. Nonetheless JDiskReport is a very handy tool that will allow you to find what's eating your hard drive space easily and quickly. Available for Windows/Linux and Mac OSX.


Get it at http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/index.html

Chrome is a new internet browser from Google

Overview:

Chrome is an internet browser, from Google.

Review:

Chrome sucks, now stop reading and go outside... okay maybe chrome doesn't suck that much but truthfully it left a bad taste in my mouth with some of it's stupid "features". But let's start from the beginning since i feel i am getting ahead too much. Google decided that it wanted some of that sweet pie of the Internet browser business and therefore it developed Chrome, a web browser with some interesting things that make it stand from the pack. for starters tabs are placed above the URL bar which i got to say its a useful and welcome addition if you ask me. Also of notice is that each tab is its own process and is independent from the other tabs, in prtactice this mean that if a tab crashes the Chrome browser will not crash with with it. You can just simply close the tab and simply forget about it. Chrome also improves the act of opening a new tab. Firefox will simply show a blank tab while Chrome will show thumbnails of your most visited sites like in opera, a search bar and a list of recently closed tabs. While all of funcionality is cool and handy there is a distinct lack of customization in the form of plugins that makes firefox so attractive, in this regard Google has choosen to take the Opera way which is to focus on stability and speed and forget about third paty modifications. Now this method provides really good speed when using Chrome but i think i am gonna stay with Firefox and its extensions.
Oh yeah i almost forgot. the reason i said Chrome sucks mainly has to do with the installation. the official Chrome download page provides a small 400KB installer that when run will download about 7Mb of extra files that are required to install chrome. That just simply sucks. Thankfully i found a direct link to download the offline installer here (Via www.askvg.com). Also the installer will not let you choose the install folder and will install the google updater that will start with the computer every time you logon into windows, without letting you to choice otherwise. also by default Chrome will import your bookmarks and passwords from your internet browser which in my opinion represents a security risk.
Anyway this post became too long and in conclusion i would like to say that chrome as a browser is pretty good but they really need to improve the installer and add some extra features. Available for Windows XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.google.com/chrome (beware of the crappy installer)

Direct link for the offline installer is here.

Reduce the size of attached pictures without losing too much quality using Shrink Pic

Overview:

Today's high resolution digital cameras produce multi Megabyte photos. These are great for printing but cause a heavy burden when sending over the Internet.

Shrink Pic allows you to send dozens of photos as email attachments - quickly and with no effort at all!

All you need to do is install Shrink Pic. It automatically detects when you're sending large photo files and compresses them in the background.

There's no setup, no operating instructions, nothing, nada. Just send your photos normally and Shrink Pic takes care of shrinking them.


Review:

If you have a slow internet connection sending large pictures to someone can be a pain in the ass since uploading big pictures can take awhile. But thanks to Shrink Pic this problem can be solved very easily. This program will automatically compress the size of a picture when you try to attach it to an email, blog post or when sending it trough MSN messenger. The original picture remains untouched of course since Shrink Pic makes a temporary copy of the original pic. You can select from various compression levels but the one that worked for me the most was the "medium" setting that while it reduced the size and quality of the picture a little it still managed to keep the look of the picture while reducing the size aggressively as you can see in the screenshot above. Shrink Pic only uses between 5 to 6Mb in my system which is great considering that you will probably want to keep on the system tray at all times, also you can make a portable installation from the settings menu that you will allow you to launch Shrink Pic directly from the pendrive making this a very handy tool to carry around. Shrink Pic is just great for those of you that constantly send large pictures to other people and want to keep the attachments light. Available for Windows 2000/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.onthegosoft.com/shrink_pic.htm

Fantastic Contraption is a fun online puzzle game with physics

Fantastic contraption mixes physics and puzzles together in order to make a highly addictive game. What you have to do is basically get the red object into the red area using a selection of tools available like rotating wheels and rods. You can mix these tools in order to make really complicated machines or you can keep it extremely simple. Its all up to you and the time that you are willing to put your brain to work, be careful tough. This gets addicting, fast. There's nothing as satisfying such as having your crazy idea work. You can share the designs you have made for the 21 normal levels available to anyone you want. If you have 10 bucks to spare you can create custom levels and play levels created by other people which i think is pretty cool..if you are willing/can to spend 10 dollars. Fantastic Contraption is a pretty cool time waster that can challenge your brain cells for a long time.


Play it at http://fantasticcontraption.com/

Gather important information with Total Organizer

Overview:

Total Organizer is a Personal Information Manager (PIM) that helps you organize and plan your business and personal life.

What's unique about the app, is that it allows you to store all of your contacts, tasks (calendar), notes, and to-do lists divided into tree-structured categories. In addition, each item (be it a note, task, contact ,etc) may belong to several categories (tags).

So, this is a combination of folders (tree) and tags. Note, that if you create subfolders (subcategories) - then by opening a folder you can see all the items belonging to it, and the contents of all its subfolders. So, by opening root folder (at the top), you can see all items of given type (e.g. notes, if you're in "notes" tab).


Review:

I have never used a personal information manager before mainly because i don't particularly care about writing down every little thing that i am supposed to do (even tough i probably should), however i am sure some of you most like that stuff so i present to you Total Organizer. With this program you can write down appointments, special dates, to do stuff, Etc. you can add events using a simple user interface in which you can separate the "personal" stuff from the "work" stuff which is useful in order to prevent confusion. Total Organizer can show pop up notices for upcoming events so that you don't forget buying groceries or other stuff like that. The memory usage is decent since it stayed between 3 to 8MB while i was using it, tough sometimes it went as high up to 18MB. I only saw that kinda of RAM usage once tough. Anyway Total Organizer is a pretty decent PIM in my opinion. Available for Windows NT/2000/2003/XP.


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

Keep a history of your clipboard items with Many Paste

Overview:

Windows clipboard has the disadvantage that you can only copy once before pasting, Many Paste solves such problem by keeping track of all your copied items and giving you quick access to them.


Review:

So Xneat recently released a new program called Many Paste that will keep a history of what you copy into the clipboard. this sounds very similar to what Clipomatic does but there are several differences between the two programs. Unlike Clipomatic Many Paste can handle more than just text. it will keep a history of pictures, files and documents that have passed trough your clipboard. That gives Many Paste an edge over clipomatic, however clipomatic can keep a database of your clipboard items that will remain even if you reboot your PC, Many Paste cannot do this. Another thing that Many Paste cannot do is to have some permanent clips that are always displayed, which is something that you could do in Clipomatic to quickly paste frequently used text like addresses, emails, Etc.
The memory usage of Many Paste is 250KB in my system which is a little higher than Clipomatic but that it's still pretty low. While Many Paste can handle more than just text it lacks some useful features found on Clipomatic, it's still a pretty good program tough. Available for Windows XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.xneat.com/many-paste/index.htm