Free Utilities Evaluation and Reviews

MysticThumbs – Image Thumbnail Manager

2012-01-27T23:37:00.000-08:00

MysticThumbs software allows generating easily thumbnails of many image formats not natively supported by Windows. It plugs into Windows Explorer so you don't have to run a separate application to preview your images, see them all in the native shell and Open/Save dialog boxes in all 32 and 64 bit applications!

MysticThumbs has a fully configurable control panel where you can adjust thumbnail generation options and icon overlays, with options like transparency, thumbnail borders, scaling, embedded thumbnail selection and more.

Compound file support for files such as HTML, Maya and EML that use external files to make a complete image.

Options are controlled on a file type / extension level or if required on a specific file basis through context menu control in Explorer.

Multiple files formats are supported: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat, Targa, TIFF, Camera RAW, PCX, Windows Metafile WMF/EMF, JPEG 2000, Maya, Google Sketchup, PaintShop Pro, HTML, HDR and many other formats as well as Postscript based images.

Main

Features

Photoshop, RAW Photography images, DirectX game textures and all sorts of other images never looked so good in Explorer!
All supported file types are all fully configurable
Transparency support - opaque, transparent, checkerboard
Image viewer to inspect all supported file types via context menu
Individual image customization via context menu
Plugin support so you can add your own formats
Enhanced support for native Windows supported images, PNG, TIFF, BMP etc.
Languages: English, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish.

Developers’ website: http://mysticcoder.net/mysticthumbs.html

Latest software release is shareware. Single User (Home) License - $25 licensed to a named person to be used for non-professional purposes. You can download it here: http://mysticcoder.net/MysticThumbs266.exe

The latest freeware software release 1.98 is still available for download from the following links:

* For 32-bit Windows: http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/files2/mysticthumbs198_x86.zip

* For 64-bit Windows: http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/files2/mysticthumbs198_x64.zip

DRM Removal Freeware for Mac – FairGame

2012-01-19T23:04:00.000-08:00

If you need to share your music and video even if it is DRM protected you need special software, DRM Removal, a program that can convert your music and video files and unprotect them, so you can share them with no problem. We assume that you, the visitor of this site, have all legitimate reasons for needing DRM removal software for your protected files.

FairGame allows users to convert audio files you have bought on the iTunes Store to an unprotected format while keeping original metadata, lyrics and artwork. It doesn’t do lossless DRM Stripping. Please note that FairGame remove drm protection through re-encoding protected AAC files purchased in iTMS into unprotected AAC files with Apple iMovie Software.

It takes 2 min. 42 sec. to convert a 4 min. song to AAC on a MacBook Pro 2.16GHz.

What you MUST DO (only once) to get FairGame to work:

Enable "Access for assistive devices" in the "Universal Access" system preference.
Select "Place clip in Movie Timeline" in the "Import" preference of iMovie HD.

Then you can simply:

select some songs in iTunes
click on the "Process songs" button
then don't touch anything and wait until it's done...(FairGame is scripting iMovie's interface to process the songs, don’t interfere)

NOTE: FairGame is available for Mac only, and does NOT support Windows.

Presented: http://undrm.info/remove-DRM-protection/FairGame-free-MacOSX-software-for-converting-iTunes-music-to-unprotected-format.htm

Downloading link: http://seidai.50webs.com/Seidai%20Software_files/FairGame.zip

Create Professional DVDs from your Video Clips

2012-01-09T22:26:00.000-08:00

DVDStyler is a cross-platform free DVD authoring application for the creation of professional-looking DVDs. It allows not only burning of video files on DVD that can be played practically on any standalone DVD player, but also creation of individually designed DVD menus, similar to those found on most commercial DVDs. It is Open Source Software and is completely free.

Main Features:

* Create and burn DVD video with interactive menus.

* Design your own DVD menu or select one from the list of ready to use menu templates.

* Create photo slideshow.

* Add multiple subtitle and audio tracks.

* Support of AVI, MOV, MP4, MPEG, OGG, WMV and other video file formats.

* Support of MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid, MP2, MP3, AC-3 and other audio and video formats.

* Support of multi-core processor.

* Use MPEG and VOB files without re-encoding.

* Put files with different audio/video format on one DVD (support of titleset).

* User-friendly interface with support of drag & drop.

* Flexible menu creation on the basis of scalable vector graphic.

* Import of image file for background.

* Place buttons, text, images and other graphic objects anywhere on the menu screen.

* Change the font/color and other parameters of buttons and graphic objects.

* Scale any button or graphic object.

* Copy any menu object or whole menu.

* Customize navigation using DVD scripting.

Screenshots:

Developers’ Website: http://www.dvdstyler.org/en/

Full Tutorial (in English): http://dvdstyler.sourceforge.net/docs/DVDStylerManual.pdf

Direct Downloading Link (ver. 2.1 for Windows): http://sourceforge.net/projects/dvdstyler/files/dvdstyler/2.1/DVDStyler-2.1-win32.exe

Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012

2012-01-03T22:02:00.000-08:00

Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012 is a free office suite that offers a number of features for creating, viewing and editing personal and business documents. Kingsoft Office Free 2012 includes Kingsoft Writer, Kingsoft Presentation and Kingsoft spreadsheets. These three reliable and versatile programs are perfect for both personal use at home and for professional businesses. They offer outstanding value at their listed cost compared to competing office programs.

Kingsoft free office software suite is compatible with all of the latest Microsoft Office file formats. It can easily open, read and write documents created with Microsoft Office as well as a wide variety of other formats. Microsoft Office can also open Kingsoft Office files without having Kingsoft Office installed on the same computer. It is fully compatible with Windows 7 (32bit,64bit).

Main features

Office Files Viewer and Editor

* Open, view and edit Word (97/2000/2003/2007/2010) .doc, .docx, .wps and .wpt formats; output to (97/2000/2003) .doc, .wps and .wpt format.
* Open and view Excel (97/2000/2003/2007/2010) .xls, .xlsx, .et and .ett formats; edit and save (97/2000/2003) .xls, .et and .ett format.
* Open and view PowerPoint (97/2000/2003/2007/2010) .ppt, .pptx, .dps and .dpt formats; edit and save (97/2000/2003) .ppt, .dps and .dpt format.

Note: While you can open and edit all office files, they may not be saved in the newer MS Office formats as docx, xlsx, and pptx.

Built -in PDF Converter

* Save files including Writer, spreadsheets, Presentation as PDF format.
* Convert Kingsoft Writer, spreadsheets, Presentation to PDF files.
* Open and convert Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx), Excel (.xls, .xlsx), PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx) to PDF files.

Automatic spell check

* Provide a built-in spell checker you can use to proofread your document.
* Mark the incorrect words in red underlines when typing.
* Provide some recommended words to help in improving your document.

Multiple document tabs

* Avoid the hassles caused by switching between multiple document windows.
* The tab bar that appears above the editable area allows you to switch between documents quickly and conveniently.
* The tab bar that appears above the editable area allows you to switch between documents quickly and conveniently.

Small data package

* The install package is just 70MB, which is only one-tenth the size of other office software.
* The software installs within just one minute.
* Although it is really small, it includes Writer, spreadsheets and Presentation to meet your daily needs in office work and document processing.

Document encryption

* Provide a document encryption function which can set a password to files.
* Set a password to open and edit documents.
* Enter an open password to only browse the document but not modify it. Enter an edit password to both browse and modify the document.
* Protect privacy to prevent others seeing or changing the files.

Humanized table operation

* Quickly select and move tables by clicking the shortcut operations on the table.
* Add additional rows and volumes by clicking shortcut operations on the table.

Share files via email

* View and edit email attachments by Kingsoft Office.
* The built-in emailling function makes it easy to share documents.

Screenshots

Minimum System Requirements

* Operating System: Windows 2000 / Windows XP / Windows Vista (32bit, 64bit) / Windows 7 (32bit, 64bit).
* Basic Configurations: CPU: Pentium II 266 MHz or higher.

* Memory: at least 128 MB

* Hardware: at least 200 MB available space on Hard Drive.

Website: http://www.kingsoftstore.com/kingsoft-office-freeware.html

Direct Download: http://www.kingsoftstore.com/download/office_suite_free_2012.exe

WinX DVD Ripper

2011-12-25T16:57:00.000-08:00

Digiarty Software, one of the best known multimedia software developers claims that its WinX DVD Ripper is the very Best Fastest Free DVD Ripper to Convert and Rip DVD to MP4 AVI WMV MPEG MOV FLV.

WinX DVD Ripper is indeed considered high quality, totally free, DVD ripping software that can be useful for multiple purposes for all computer users. It can help you to backup DVD to hard drive for better protection and longer storage or convert to one of the multimedia formats, playable on portable devices, or compressed to save space on your Hard Drive, USB, or DVD.

This free DVD ripper is able to free rip DVD to MP4, WMV, AVI, FLV, MOV, MPEG, H.264 formats, and easily convert DVD to iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, Android phone, PSP, etc. with customized profile settings.

In support of all regular DVDs, this DVD ripper freeware can also convert and rip copy protected DVDs, so you can copy virtually any DVD, which is supposed to prevent from performing this operation for copyright purposes. It can remove DVD CSS, UOP, RCE, region code and even Sony ARccOS.

With only a few clicks, WinX Free DVD ripper delivers you excellent video/audio quality at super-fast speed through Hyper-threading and Super Encode Engine based on MMX- SSE & 3DNow. This free DVD ripping software contains no malware, adware, spyware or virus at all.

Developer’s website: http://www.winxdvd.com/dvd-ripper/

My personal experience is pretty positive with this utility. I am using its Platinum version, which has been given away for free couple of months ago, and now costs $35.95, but all the features I really need are those which are included in the free version, presented above. Developers noticed that the free version does not support the latest DVD protection from Disney X-project DRM adopted by Disney, Paramount and Warner, but I had no case, when I needed to break this lock for backup purposes.

Please use the software responsibly, and do not apply the tool to copy illegally the data, which is not allowed to be copied by the authors. However, I am not a computer police, so use your common sense and your own ethical framework.

QuickAudio - Free audio editing software for Windows

2011-12-09T20:23:00.001-08:00

QuickAudio is freeware, full-featured audio editing software which lets you edit, play and record digital audio as well as convert between various popular audio formats. It has standard audio editing features, multiple undo, audio spectrum analysis as well as support for up to 24 VST different plugins. Zoom out to edit your whole waveform at once or zoom in to edit individual samples. Cut and paste between as many files as you like.

The software was developed by Canadian Sion Software, one of the software development leaders for the music related utilities.

Formats supported include:

Wave
MP3
Ogg Vorbis
AIFF
CDR

Editing operations include:

Cut, Copy and Paste
Change sample rate, bits per sample and channels
Insert Space
Amplify
Silence
Fade In
Fade Out
Normalize
Compress
Reverb
Filters - Lift/Attenuate Musical Presence, Vocal Presence, Bass, Midrange, Treble
Remove Noise
Change Duration (without changing pitch)
Change Pitch (without changing duration)
Add up to 24 VST plugins for your own custom editing

Website: http://www.sionsoft.com/qaudio.html

Download the installation file from the Download tab on the top of the page.

3 Freeware utilities for Kindle users

2011-12-01T21:39:00.001-08:00

If you are representing the new crowd of Ebook gadgets’ users, you might already face the necessity to convert the text format of the found texts to the particular format that will be accepted by your device properly. While each gadget has the list of the supported formats, not all of them are convenient to use on your device. For example, Kindle is reading PDF, but if the file is not prepared properly, you might find it unacceptable.

So, if you own Kindle, you need software to convert text file formats in the formats, supported by this device, preferably to the branded Kindle format – MOBI. In this post, we will present several freeware utilities to help you.

1. Calibre

Calibre is considered by many users as the only best software for Calibre, for some it is even the only software needed. Supporting major operation systems as Windows, Mac, and Linux, this features-reach, ambitious eBook management suite includes eBook format conversion, an eBook reader for any format, and online tagging and local organizing of eBook files. It also supports direct synchronization with Android, iOS, and most all eBook reading devices, including the Kindle.

For Kindle owners, Calibre is the easiest and most reliable way to convert almost any document format into a Kindle friendly format (such as .MOBI). It is also a great tool for tagging/downloading metadata to your eBook files as well as syncing them with the Kindle. It is especially great tool for those who mostly use external, non-Amazon sources to fill the gadget library.

Calibre supports the conversion of many input formats to many output formats. It can convert every input format in the following list, to every output format.

* Input Formats: CBZ, CBR, CBC, CHM, DJVU, EPUB, FB2, HTML, HTMLZ, LIT, LRF, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, SNB, TCR, TXT, TXTZ

* Output Formats: EPUB, FB2, OEB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, HTMLZ, PDB, PML, RB, PDF, RTF, SNB, TCR, TXT, TXTZ

The conversion engine has lots of powerful features. It can rescale all font sizes, ensuring the output e-book is readable no matter what font sizes the input document uses. It can automatically detect/create book structure, like chapters and Table of Contents. It can insert the book metadata into a "Book Jacket" at the start of the book.

Website: http://calibre-ebook.com/

Direct Download Page: http://calibre-ebook.com/download

Portable version for Windows: http://calibre-ebook.googlecode.com/files/calibre-portable-0.8.28.zip

2. Hamster

This freeware Hamster software also can convert pretty much any eBook and document format into a Kindle friendly format such as .MOBI. It does not try to cover all the features, which Calibre offers, but the conversion part is done by this utility with high speed and quality.

The software is very user-friendly and can perform a job for multiple files on the go, applying drag-and-drop approach. Format selection can be done directly, or you can just chose your device type, and select the preferred output format for your operation.

Website: http://ebook.hamstersoft.com/en/home

Direct Download Page: http://stuff.hamstersoft.com/launch/hamsterfreeebookconverter.exe

Note that once run, the installer will download installation data from the internet (approx 45 MB of data). The installer will ask if you also want to install Hamster Free Zip Archiver by default, so make sure to UNCHECK that if you do not want it.

3. Auto Kindle eBook Converter

The Auto Kindle eBook Converter is free open source utility, developed for the same purpose as the software, offered above, however, it covers much smaller list of the applicable formats, while doing that well. The input file formats supported are: PDF, Lit, and HTML files, while the output is a Kindle-friendly .MOBI format.

The software has almost no interface, it will ask you to point to the input files and will generate MOBI output files pretty fast.

Website: http://sourceforge.net/projects/autokindle/

Direct Downloading Page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/autokindle/files/latest/download?source=files

Virtual Desktops Manager from Windows Sysinternals

2011-11-23T23:06:00.001-08:00

Computers development is moving fast in different directions. Your monitors become bigger and the screen resolution – better. At the same time, the amount of applications, shortcuts, widgets, and other useful elements you would like to keep handy, may grow faster, than the ability to place on your desktop. The common solution available is offered by multiple virtual desktops. You can define them by users, if multiple users utilize the same computer, or by functions, for example – one desktop for business, another – for leisure, or keeping in mind some other objectives.

There are multiple software programs, both freeware and commercial versions, addressing these needs, and we are going to present today the tiny 60-KB utility from Windows Sysinternals (owned by Microsoft) is a simple way to set up four virtual desktops on your system.

Desktops utility allows you to organize your applications on up to four virtual desktops. Read email on one, browse the web on the second, and do work in your productivity software on the third, without the clutter of the windows you're not using. After you configure hotkeys for switching desktops, you can create and switch desktops either by clicking on the tray icon to open a desktop preview and switching window, or by using the hotkeys.

Unlike other virtual desktop utilities that implement their desktops by showing the windows that are active on a desktop and hiding the rest, Sysinternals Desktops uses a Windows desktop object for each desktop. Application windows are bound to a desktop object when they are created, so Windows maintains the connection between windows and desktops and knows which ones to show when you switch a desktop. That making Sysinternals Desktops very lightweight and free from bugs that the other approach is prone to where their view of active windows becomes inconsistent with the visible windows.

Desktops reliance on Windows desktop objects means that it cannot provide some of the functionality of other virtual desktop utilities, however. For example, Windows doesn't provide a way to move a window from one desktop object to another, and because a separate Explorer process must run on each desktop to provide a taskbar and start menu, most tray applications are only visible on the first desktop. Further, there is no way to delete a desktop object, so Desktops does not provide a way to close a desktop, because that would result in orphaned windows and processes. The recommended way to exit Desktops is therefore to logoff.

Website: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881

Download: http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Desktops.zip

Alternative program we observed earlier - Dexpot. Feel free to check it, if you like the idea, but need to explore more features-rich utility.

How to Enhance Context Menu of Windows Explorer?

2011-11-15T21:08:00.001-08:00

If you still use Windows Explorer as your default files and folders manager, you may find this free utility extremely useful. Without changing your working style, you can add multiples additional useful options to the built-in capabilities.

FileMenu Tools allows you to customize the context menu of Windows Explorer. And it lets you:

Add some built-in utilities that perform operations on files and folders.
Add customized commands which run external applications, copy/move to a specific folder or delete specific file types.
Configure the "Send to..." submenu.
Enable/disable commands which are added by other applications to the context menu.

The built-in utilities are the following:

· Synchronize Folders: Synchronizes two folders. It is possible configure the synchronization type (unidirectional, bidirectional, etc.) and the file types which must be synchronized.

· Extended Delete: Deletes recursively specific file types from a folder. The file types are specified with wildcards, for example: *.txt, *.t??, etc.

· Find And Replace: Finds and replaces a text in all selected files. It is possible to use regular expressions.

· Advanced Renamer: Renames all the selected elements by using some patterns.

· Delete Locked File: Deletes files which are locked by any application and cannot be deleted normally.

· Delete Permanently: Deletes the selected elements WITHOUT moving them to the Recycle Bin.

· Change Icon: Changes the icon assigned to the selected folder.

· Run with Arguments: Run a program with parameters typed through a dialog box.

· Command Line From Here: Open a command line window and go to selected folder.

· Split File: Splits the selected file in various parts.

· Join File: Joins the parts of a file which were previously splitted.

· Copy to...: Copies the selected elements to other folder.

· Move to...: Moves the selected elements to other folder.

· Copy Name: Copies to the clipboard the name of the all selected elements.

· Copy Path: Copies to the clipboard the path of the all selected elements.

· Copy UNC Path: Copies to the clipboard the path of the all selected elements in UNC format (\\machine\SharedResource\Path).

· Copy Internet Path: Copies to the clipboard the path of the all selected elements in Internet format (file://Path).

· Copy Content: Copies to the clipboard the content of the selected element. If a folder is selected, all element names that the folder contains will be copied.

· Paste Clipboard: Appends the clipboard contents into the selected elements. If a folder is selected, then will be created a file in that folder with the clipboard contents.

· Attributes: Displays a submenu which lets change the attributes of the selected elements. If a folder is selected, it is possible change the attributes recursively.

· Change Time: Changes the creation time, the last access time and/or the last write time of the selected elements. If a folder is selected, it is possible change the time recursively.

· Register DLL: Registers a DLL in Windows.

· Unregister DLL: Unregisters a DLL.

· Create New Folder: Creates a new folder into the selected folder.

· Size of Folders: Displays the size of the folders.

· Shred Files: Lets you shred the selected files definitely so it is impossible to recovery the files with recovering tools.

· Send to mail recipient: Sends an e-mail with the selected elements as attachments.

· Pack to Folder: Creates a new subfolder in the current folder and moves all the selected elements to this subfolder.

· Duplicate Files: Creates a new copy of the selected elements in the current folder.

· Select: Selects the elements in the Windows Explorer by its type.
NOTE: this utility does not work on Windows 7.

· Create Symbolic Link: Creates a symbolic link which is referenced to the selected element. It only works on Windows Vista or later.

· Calculate and Verify Checksum: Calculates and verifies checksums of the selected elements. By calculating the checksum of a file you can verify if the file has been modified.

Website: http://www.lopesoft.com/en/fmtools/info.html

Direct Download: http://www.lopesoft.com/fmtools/FileMenuTools-setup.exe

Jaangle Free Portable Music Player and Organizer

2011-11-06T21:24:00.000-08:00

Jaangle (formerly Teen Spirit) is open source, free, music player and organizer software. It categorizes your mp3, ogg, wma, avi etc collection and displays it in easy to browse, user interface. It has a quality audio - video player and also an integrated tag editor.

Description

Jaangle has an intuitive and user-friendly interface for playing music, an excellent library for music managing, and very interesting download capabilities of artist photos/bios, song lyrics, etc.

You start by adding a folder which contains your music files (mp3, wma, avi, mpg etc). Jaangle scans and reads the available tag info. The artists appear in the tree like control. Each time you click on an artist all his tracks can be seen in the list pane, artist biography and image are automatically downloaded from the internet and displayed in the information pane. By double clicking a track in the list you hear the music playing. More info may appear (if available) in the info pane like lyrics or comments.

Jaangle is a Microsoft © Windows software application and it is tested in Windows XP/2003, Vista. It is certified by softpedia as 100% free of malware, including adware, spyware, viruses, trojans and backdoors.

License: Open source (GPL) free software (Freeware).

Main Features

* Media Player. Jaangle is using minimal resources (memory, CPU) for playing audio files based on the excellent bass engine. It plays video files using the DirectShow filters. By default it crossfades between tracks.

* Supported Audio Formats: mp3, mp2, wma, cda, ogg, mp1, aiff, xm, it, s3m, mod, mtm, umx, mo3, mpc, flac, mid, midi, ac3, mp4, ape, m4a and more based on directshow filters installed.

* Supported Video Formats: mpg, avi, mpeg, wmv, mp4 and more based on directshow filters installed.

* Music file tag editor (mp3, mpc, wma ...). You can tag files easily by right clicking in each track and click "properties". Alternatively you can drag-drop a track over a different artist/album/genre/year in the tree control. There are more ways to mass-tag your tracks by changing Artist / Album properties or by multiple select many tracks.

* Management. You can view your collection in various ways like Artists / Album, Year / Albums and more. Sorting is also available for every item type.

* Information downloading. By default, Jaangle, automatically downloads information from various sources in web. It is able to download information from Amazon (Album covers / Album reviews), LastFm (Artist Bio / Artist photo / Album covers), and Google (Track lyrics).

* History Logging. Jaangle automatically keeps log of the music you play. Note that it logs it only if you fully listen the track. You can see the full log of all the tracks that you have played and also track / artist statistics like top 10 per year/month etc.

* Info Display. Detailed information is displayed is the bottom right panel. It shows the artist (picture / bio) or the album (cover / review). By clicking the config button (the second icon in the title bar) you can choose to display visualizations/video or a web browser.

* Advanced Searching

* Visualization. Jaangle uses the excellent WinAmp's avs for displaying visualizations. You can add more visualization by adding visualizations scripts in the avs subdirectory.

* Game. Jaangle feature some variations of a music quiz game (it is inspired from my iPod) and the interface reminds "who wants the millionaire" TV game.The general idea is to select as quickly as possible the correct track that you listen. The games feature a total available time, a bonus in a correct answer, and a penalty in a mistaken one.
* And more…

Developers Website: http://www.jaangle.com

Direct Downloading Link (portable version): http://www.jaangle.com/files/jfiles.zip

Foolproof File Unlocker - LockHunter

2011-10-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

LockHunter is a free tool to delete files blocked by something you do not know. It is useful for fighting against malware, and other programs that are blocking files without a reason. Unlike other similar tools it deletes files into the recycle bin so you may restore them if deleted by mistake.

Freeware is developed by Russian software development team Crystal Rich Ltd.

Key Features

* Shows processes locking a file or folder.

* Allows unlocking, deleting, copying or renaming a locked file.

* Allows killing locking process.

* Allows removing locking processes from hard drive.

* Integrates in to Explorer menu.

* It deletes files into the recycle bin, so you may restore them if deleted by mistake.

* Supports both 32 and 64bit Windows.

Website: http://lockhunter.com/

Direct Download (32-bit): http://lockhunter.com/lockhuntersetup32.exe

Direct Download (64-bit): http://lockhunter.com/lockhuntersetup64.exe

DVD Shrink - Free Software for Compression and Decryption of Copy-Protected DVD

2011-10-19T23:01:00.000-07:00

There are several issues you may surface when you try to backup your DVDs. First of all, some disks are copy-protected, and embedded code will not allow you to copy it through common ways to prevent illegal distribution of the recorded media. But, if the DVD is yours, and you just want to preserve its copy in case the original media is damaged, you are stuck. DVDShrink – free software utility – will help you to remove the annoying protection. The second problem is related to the DVD size. You may just not be able to fit it to your blank DVD because there is not enough space. Definitely, compressing the disk may cause the certain quality losses, but in most cases, it cannot be even noticed. DVDShrink will assist you to perform the DVD compression as well to the certain degree.

If you have have the latest version of the DVD burning software from Nero, DVDShrink will also burn your backup DVD right away. If you already possess alternative burning software and prefer to stick with it, then you can still use DVD Shrink. The output from DVDShrink can be saved as files on your hard drive, which you can then burn with software of your choice.

As it was noticed already, most commercial DVD titles are encrypted, which prevents you from either copying them to your hard drive, or if you manage to do so, being able to play the resulting files. DVDShrink overcomes this problem with built-in decryption algorithms.

DVDShrink also allows you to re-author your DVD. You can make your own compilation from one or more source DVDs, or select only the parts of a DVD which you intend to view, thus preserving more space on your backup for the highest quality viewing.

Developers’ website: http://www.dvdshrink.org/what_en.php

Detailed guides on how to install and use the software:

Doom9 has written an excellent DVDShrink Guide which covers pretty much everything you can do with DVDShrink.
Check out ddlooping's interactive guides at dvdshrink.info.
mrbass has written an excellent guide with lots of screenshots at mrbass.org.

Direct downloading link (ver. 3.2.0.15): http://www.fileserve.com/file/h3HDR2a/dvdshrink32setup.zip

145 Free Portable Computer Monitoring and Maintenance Utilities in One Package

2011-10-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

Whenever possible, as you may noticed, I am trying to use portable software utilities. Stored on the portable USB thumb disk, they can be shared among multiple computers, and serve as mobile computer monitoring, troubleshooting, and repair toolkit, which is always with you.

In this post, I would like to present All-In-One package NirLauncher, consisting of more than 100 small, but useful utilities, compiled by Nir Sofer (Israel), one of the most respected young programmers in the World of the portable freeware design. All the programs in the package were developed for NirSoft Web site during the last few years, and have been updated in the last 1000 days.

NirLauncher Features

NirLauncher can be used from USB flash drive without need of any installation.
NirLauncher and all the utilities in the package are completely freeware, without any Spyware/Adware/Malware.
NirLauncher package includes variety of tools that you may need for your daily computer use, including utilities to recover lost passwords, to monitor your network, to view and extract cookies, cache, and other information stored by your Web browser, to search files in your system, and more...
For every utility in the package, you can easily run it, view the help file, or jump to the Web page of the utility.
When using it from USB flash drive, the configuration of every utility is saved into .cfg file on the flash drive.
On x64 systems, NirLauncher automatically run the x64 version of the utility, when there is a separated x64 version.
NirLauncher also allows adding more software packages in additional to the main NirSoft package.

System Requirements

NirLauncher works on any version of Windows, starting from Windows 2000 and up to Windows 7. NirLauncher also works on x64 systems. Some the NirSoft utilities have a separated version for x64, and NirLauncher automatically run them when you're in x64 system.

Using NirLauncher

In order to start using NirLauncher, simply extract all files in the package into your flash drive, or any other disk you want. You must extract the package with full folder names, so all NirSoft utilities will be add into NirSoft Subfolder. After you extracted the package, simply run the executable file - NirLauncher.exe

Note

Due to the character of some utilities in the package, you may experience certain False Positive issues – your Antivirus program may display false alerts, saying that the utilities are infected with Trojan/Virus/Malware. Based on my personal experience, and the experts reviews, there is no danger in any of the parts of the software, and you can simply disregard warnings if appear.

List of Utilities with brief description

The following utilities are included in NirLauncher package. This list is automatically updated when a new NirLauncher package is released.

1. AlternateStreamView - Find all hidden alternate streams stored in the file system.

2. AltStreamDump - Dumps the list of NTFS alternate streams.

3. AppCrashView - Displays the details of all application crashes occurred in your system.

4. Asterisk Logger - Reveals the passwords stored behind the asterisks ('***') boxes.

5. AdapterWatch - Displays useful information about your network adapters.

6. ActiveXHelper - View essential information about ActiveX components installed on your computer.

7. BatteryInfoView - Displays battery information on laptops and netbooks.

8. BlueScreenView - Show information about blue screen crashes occurred in your system.

9. BluetoothCL - Show bluetooth devices list.

10. BluetoothView - Monitors the activity of Bluetooth devices around you.

11. BulkFileChanger - Change date/time/attributes of multiple files.

12. BulletsPassView - Reveals the passwords stored behind the bullets.

13. ChromeCacheView - Chrome Browser Cache Viewer.

14. ChromeCookiesView - Alternative to the standard internal cookies viewer of Google Chrome.

15. ChromeHistoryView - View the browsing history of Chrome Web browser.

16. ChromePass - Password recovery tool for Google Chrome Web browser.

17. CleanAfterMe - Clean files and Registry values in your system.

18. Clipboardic - Small and simple clipboard manager.

19. CurrPorts - Displays the list of all currently opened TCP/UDP ports on your computer.

20. CurrProcess - Displays the list of all processes currently running on your system.

21. CSVFileView - CSV/Tab-delimited file viewer and converter.

22. CustomizeIE - Add/delete toolbar buttons and menu items in Internet Explorer.

23. CustomExplorerToolbar - Add Copy/Cut/Paste buttons to the Explorer toolbar of Windows 7.

24. DeviceIOView - Watch the data transfer between a software or service and a device driver.

25. DevManView - Alternative to the standard Device Manager of Windows.

26. Dialupass - Recovers Dial-Up passwords in all versions of Windows.

27. DiskCountersView - Show disk drive read/write counters.

28. DiskSmartView - Retrieves S.M.A.R.T information from IDE/SATA disks.

29. DLL Export Viewer - Lists DLL exported functions and their memory addresses - for debugging.

30. DNSDataView - Retrieve the DNS records (MX, NS, A, SOA) of the specified domains.

31. DomainHostingView - Displays extensive information about a domain.

32. DotNetResourcesExtract - Extract embedded resources from .NET applications.

33. DownTester - Test your Internet download speed.

34. DriveLetterView - View and change drive letter assignments.

35. DriverView - Displays the list of all device drivers currently loaded on your system.

36. FastResolver - Resolves multiple host names into IP addresses/MAC Addresses and vice versa.

37. FavoritesView - Displays the list of all your Favorites/bookmarks in a single page.

38. FileTypesMan - Alternative to the 'File Types' manager of Windows.

39. FirefoxDownloadsView - Displayed the list of downloaded files in Firefox.

40. FlashCookiesView - View Flash cookies stored in your computer.

41. GDIView - Displays the list of GDI handles opened by every process.

42. HashMyFiles - Calculate the MD5/SHA1 hashes of your files.

43. HeapMemView - View the content of all memory blocks allocated in the heap.

44. HTMLAsText - Converts HTML documents to simple text files.

45. HtmlDocEdit - Simple HTML designer/editor.

46. IconsExtract - Extract icons and cursors from executbale files (EXE, DLL, OCX, CPL, etc.)

47. IECacheView - List all files currently stored in the cache of Internet Explorer.

48. IECookiesView - Displays the cookies that Internet Explorer stores on your computer.

49. IEHistoryView - Displays the list of Web sites that you visited with IE Web browser.

50. IE PassView - Recover passwords stored by Internet Explorer (Versions 4.0 - 8.0).

51. InsideClipboard - Displays the content of all formats stored in the clipboard.

52. InstalledCodec - List Codec drivers and DirectShow filters installed on your system.

53. IPInfoOffline - View country information about IP addresses.

54. IPNetInfo - Easily find all available information about IP address.

55. LiveContactsView - View the details of all contacts in your Windows Live Messenger.

56. LSASecretsDump - Dump the LSA secrets from the Registry.

57. LSASecretsView - Displays the list of all LSA secrets stored in the Registry on your computer.

58. MACAddressView - MAC address lookup tool.

59. Mail PassView - Recovers email passwords.

60. MonitorInfoView - Displays essential information about your monitor.

61. MozillaCacheView - List all files currently stored in the cache of Firefox/Mozilla browser.

62. MozillaHistoryView - Displays the list of visited Web sites in Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape Web browsers.

63. MessenPass - Recovers the passwords of instant messenger programs.

64. MUICacheView - Edit/delete MUICache items in your system.

65. MetarWeather - Decode METAR weather reports, and display them in a weather report table.

66. MyEventViewer - MyEventViewer is an alternative to the standard event viewer of Windows.

67. MyLastSearch - View your latest searches with Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

68. MyUninstaller - Alternative utility to the standard Add/Remove applet of Windows.

69. MozillaCookiesView - Alternative to the 'Cookie Manager' provided by Netscape and Mozilla.

70. Network Password Recovery - Recover network passwords on Windows XP/2003/Vista.

71. NetResView - Displays the list of all network resources on your LAN.

72. NetRouteView - GUI alternative to the standard route utility of Windows.

73. NetworkTrafficView - Displays network traffic statistics on your network adapter.

74. NirCmd - Do many useful tasks from command-line.

75. NK2Edit - Full NK2 (AutoComplete) editor for Microsoft Outlook.

76. NTFSLinksView - View the list of NTFS symbolic links/junctions in selected folder.

77. OfficeIns - Displays the details of all installed Microsoft Office add-ins on your computer.

78. OpenedFilesView - Displays the list of all opened files on your system.

79. OpenWithView - Disable/enable items in the 'Open With' dialog-box of Windows.

80. OperaCacheView - Cache viewer for Opera Web browser.

81. OperaPassView - Password recovery tool for Opera Web browser.

82. OutlookAttachView - Extract multiple attachments from Outlook.

83. OutlookStatView - Display a general statistics of your Outlook emails.

84. PasswordFox - View passwords stored in Firefox Web browser.

85. PCAnywhere PassView - View passwords for PCAnywhere.

86. PingInfoView - Ping multiple host names and IP addresses.

87. ProcessActivityView - Show the file activity for selected process.

88. ProcessThreadsView - Displays information about all threads of the process that you choose.

89. ProduKey - Displays the CD-Keys of MS-Office/Windows installed on your computer.

90. PstPassword - Recover lost password of Outlook PST file.

91. Remote Desktop PassView - Reveals the password stored by Microsoft Remote Desktop utility.

92. RecentFilesView - Display the list of recently opened files.

93. RegDllView - RegDllView is a small utility that displays the list of all registered files.

94. RegFileExport - Export offline Registry file to .reg file.

95. RegFromApp - Creates .reg file according to Registry changes made by application.

96. RegScanner - Scan and find values in the Registry.

97. ResourcesExtract - Extract resources from dll/ocx/exe files.

98. RouterPassView - Recover passwords from router config file.

99. RunAsDate - Run a program with the specified date.

100. RunFromProcess - Run a program from another process that you choose.

101. SearchFilterView - View the search filters installed on your system.

102. SearchMyFiles - Alternative to the "Search For Files And Folders" module of Windows.

103. SeqDownload - Download sequence of images from the Web, and create animation.

104. ServiWin - Displays the list of installed drivers and services on your system.

105. ShellBagsView - Displays the list of all folder settings saved by Windows.

106. ShellMenuNew - Disable/Enable items in the New submenu of Explorer.

107. ShellExView - Displays the details of shell extensions installed on your computer.

108. ShortcutsMan - Lists all shortcuts on your desktop/start menu.

109. ShellMenuView - Disable/enable static menu items in context menu of Explorer.

110. SiteShoter - Save a screenshot of any Web page into a file.

111. SkypeLogView - View log files created by Skype.

112. SmartSniff - Captures TCP/IP packets, view the captured data as sequence of conversations.

113. SniffPass - Capture the passwords that pass through your network adapter.

114. SocketSniff - Watch the Windows Sockets (WinSock) activity of the selected process.

115. SpecialFoldersView - Easily jump to special folders in your system.

116. SysExporter - Grab the data stored in list-views, tree-views, list boxes, and combo boxes.

117. TableTextCompare - Compare tab-delimited or comma-delimited (csv) files.

118. URLProtocolView - View/disable/enable the URL protocols installed on your system.

119. URLStringGrabber - Grab URL strings of Web sites from Internet Explorer.

120. USBDeview - Lists all installed USB devices that you previously used.

121. UserAssistView - This utility decrypts and displays the list of all UserAssist entries.

122. UserProfilesView - View user profiles information on your system.

123. VideoCacheView - Extract Web site video files from the cache of your Web browser.

124. VNCPassView - Recover the passwords stored by the VNC tool.

125. Volumouse - Adjust the volume of your speaker with the wheel of your mouse.

126. WakeMeOnLan -Turn on computers remotely by sending Wake-on-LAN (WOL) packet.

127. WebBrowserPassView - Recover lost passwords from your Web browser.

128. WebCookiesSniffer - Captures Web site cookies and displays them in a simple table

129. WebSiteSniffer - Capture Web site files and save them on your hard drive.

130. WebVideoCap - Capture Flash Video files and RTSP streams, watching them in a Web browser.

131. WhatInStartup - Disable/enable/delete programs that are loaded at Windows startup.

132. WhatIsHang - Get information about Windows software that hangs.

133. WhoisCL - Get WHOIS information about a registered domain from command-line.

134. WhoisThisDomain - Get information about a registered domain from WHOIS server.

135. WhosIP - Find all available information about an IP address from command-line.

136. WinCrashReport - Displays a report about crashed Windows application.

137. WinFontsView - Display sample of all fonts installed on your system.

138. WinLister - This utility displays the list of opened windows on your system.

139. WinPrefetchView - View the Prefetch files (.pf) stored in your system.

140. WirelessKeyDump - Dumps the list of all wireless keys stored by Windows.

141. WirelessKeyView - Recovers lost wireless network keys (WEP/WPA) stored in your computer.

142. WirelessNetConsole - View wireless networks information (console application).

143. WirelessNetView - Monitor the activity of wireless networks around you.

144. Wireless Network Watcher - Shows who is connected to your wireless network.

145. WinUpdatesList - Displays the list of all Windows updates (Service Packs and Hotfixes).

Developer’s website: http://launcher.nirsoft.net/

Direct Download: http://www.ziddu.com/download/16683644/nirsoft_package_1.11.26.zip.html

Compressed package is only 11 MB!!! Highly recommended for advanced users and simply recommended for all others!

Convert video files to DVD with DVD Flick

2011-09-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

DVD Flick aims to be a simple but at the same time powerful DVD Authoring tool. It can take a number of video files stored on your computer and turn them into a DVD that will play back on your DVD player, Media Center or Home Cinema Set. You can add additional custom audio tracks, subtitles as well as a menu for easier navigation.

Main Features

Burn near any video file to DVD
Support for over 45 file formats
Support for over 60 video codecs
Support for over 40 audio codecs
Easily add a menu
Add your own subtitles
Easy to use interface
Burn your project to disc after encoding
Completely free without any adware, spyware or limitations.

The respectable freeware review site Freeware Genius has rated the utility 5 out of 5. Here is excerpt from their review:

This program will let you (a) combine a single file or multiple files into a playable DVD, (b) add subtitles, and (c) add secondary audio tracks. It has a number of definite strengths, as follows:

Simple, straightforward interface design. It is remarkable how simple and intuitive this UI is, especially for a DVD authoring tool. This alone is reason enough for me to switch to this program.
Will convert almost any video file, which means that you are extremely likely to be able to put any video that you may have on your hard drive on DVD. This is not to be taken for granted, as I recently tried to convert a video file to DVD using another favorite program of mine, AVI2DVD, only to find that it was not able to handle the audio.
A partial list of supported formats are as follows: AVI, MPG, MOV, WMV, ASF, FLV, Matroska and MP4. Supported codecs are amongst others, MPEG-124 (Xvid, DivX, etc.), Windows Media AudioVideo. MP3, OGG Vorbis, H264, and On2 VP56.
You can convert to ISO image on hard disk if you do need want to burn to DVD or there’s not one handy.

One thing that this program does not have is the option to create a title menu with custom backgrounds and/or music. My guess (from looking at the program’s feedback page) is that this will be coming in a future version. In any case if you must have this use AVI2DVD.

System requirements:

Processor: A Pentium MMX or compatible AMD processor, or better. A Pentium IV or later is recommended, the faster the better. Multithreading is supported.
Memory: At least 256 MB of free physical RAM, 512 MB or more is recommended. When using Windows Vista, at least 512 MB is required.
Operating system: Windows 2000 Professional, or any edition of Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Developers Website: http://www.dvdflick.net/

Direct Download Link (ver. 1.3.0.7): http://downloads.sourceforge.net/dvdflick/dvdflick_setup_1.3.0.7.exe

100 million free mp3 files for download – absolutely legal

2011-09-15T22:57:00.000-07:00

Everyone likes music. Everyone likes the favorite music to be downloaded for free on their Hard Drives. With numerous software and portable multimedia devices, you can create unlimited audio library of the songs you like, without spending a cent. The only concern, many users have, is legality of these actions. May be you have heard scary stories, spread around, about poor kids, sued for millions dollars for downloading several tracks. These stories are mostly represent urban legends and are far of being true, but this post will not deal with these myths. Instead, we will show you the way how to download the music for free with no risk for any unpleasant legal consequences.

music2pc is a free program, which is designed to find and download MP3 songs from the Internet. You can search music among more than 100 million tracks and enjoy free mp3 downloads.

Built on a very fast and safe non-bittorrent and non-peer-to-peer method of getting MP3s, the program gives you the ultimate access to our multimillion database of quality mp3 songs. There are large numbers of Free Legal Music Sources on the Internet, and the software allows you to dig this database to locate whatever you need.

The operation is simple and straightforward. Just enter the artist name or song name and click search! The downloaded mp3 files are in standard mp3 format, and they are compatible with any portable device, like mp3 Player, iPod, iPhone, PSP, PDA, cell phone, iPad etc. The files will be stored on your devices, and not on the online database, so you can listen to them anytime whether or not you're logged on to the Internet.

music2pc is an ultimate freeware: No ads, no spyware, no charges, no time or feature limits. It is completely free for you to install, use, and enjoy.

Software accepts searches for the foreign languages as well. I tried Russian titles and got multiple results for them.

System Requirements

Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 2003, 2008 Server;

Pentium-compatible PC (Pentium II, Athlon or more-recent);

128 Mb RAM (256 Mb RAM recommended);

Minimum 15 Mb available hard disk space;

1024x768 resolution, with at least 256 colors;

Broadband Internet connection.

Website: http://www.music2pc.com/

Direct downloading link (portable version, no need to be installed on your Hard Drive): http://www.ziddu.com/download/16401338/music2pc.exe.html

Improve Productivity - Quickly Process Files and Folders with Predefined Actions

2011-09-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

DropiIt is an open source tiny freeware utility to automate sorting and filing data-files and folders. No, it probably, will not perform any operations with your data, that you cannot do already with tools, built in your Operating System. But, using DropIt, you may significantly improve your productivity and complete some daily routine operations smarter and faster.

When you need to organize files, DropIt can eliminate much of the drudgery of searching and manually opening folders and moving files around.

You can configure DropIt to do 9 different predefined actions to be performed with your files and folders (Move, Copy, Compress, Extract, Rename, Open With, List, Delete and Ignore), filtering files by name, extension, location, size and/or date. You can even save sets of patterns in profiles and associate a profile to each desired folder, to scan monitored folders at a defined time interval.

You might need to review the background basic rules to perform the actions, and configure the utility for your convenience. And then the operation is simple and straightforward. Just drag and drop file or a group of assorted files and/or folders on the floating DropIt image and program will sort them automatically to defined destination folders, eventually compress or extract them, open them with associated programs or do other desired defined actions. As result, you save time on this routine operation, and the consistency of your data following the rules, improve.

Main Features

* Process files and folders manually with Drag-and-Drop
* Process files and folders automatically with Folder Monitoring
* Filter files and folders by name, extension, location, size and/or date
* Move, Copy, Compress, Extract, Rename, Open With, List, Delete, Ignore actions
* Collect patterns in different profiles and assign an image to each one
* Support also Context-Menu, Send-To and Command-Line
* Support automatic software update
* Support encryption to protect your profiles with a password
* Support internal, system and custom environment variables
* Support log file creation to verify sorting operations
* Support for Unicode encoding
* Available with Multi-language interface
* Available in both installer and portable versions

* Automatic updates function is available

Website: http://dropit.sourceforge.net/

Download (portable version): https://sourceforge.net/projects/dropit/files/DropIt/v3.6/DropIt_v3.6_Portable.zip/download

Portable Universal Virus Sniffer

2011-08-25T23:11:00.000-07:00

Universal Virus Sniffer is a powerful antivirus removal tool designed to ease the process of detecting and eliminating unknown viruses, rootkits, and bootkits. It is especially recommended for experienced users.

Main Features

* The three basic modes: work with active, inactive and remote systems through the network without installing additional software.

* The fourth mode of operation: work simulation on the virtual system, based on its image.

* Working with the registry in three modes: remove links to viruses, troubleshooting after treatment of antivirus.
* A unique set of filters and a built-in analyzer for the rapid detection of unknown malware.
* Maintaining user base of viruses, automatic extraction of signatures from executable files (including protected).
* Automatic detection of active file viruses and removing their signatures.
* Rapid detection and easy removal of any file rootkits [file matching + provrka figures. signatures on a clean system]
* Ability to use catalog external digital signatures (CatRoot) inactive system (including in the WinPE 2.x-3.x).

* Ability to discover hidden DLL in the address space of the process.
* Starting in the mode of pure desktop (elimination of Winlock).
* Special immunization module cleaning system before starting uVS.

* Detection of latent infection MBR, Boot sector and downloaders Windows.
* Convenient restoration of damaged / missing files from distribution Windows (only for Win2k/XP/2k3).
* Backup Registry with its defragmentation and recovery.
* Registry Editor including in x64 and WinPE.

*Registry visualization.

Notes

* UVS is not a substitute for a real-time antivirus utility on your computer. It should be used for the emergency cases, when your antivirus program fails to treat the virus-related issues.

* Currently, the following antivirus programs as Avast, AVG, Gdata and Sophos may flag this utility as infected. Note, that is normal for virus scanner, and the shown threat is a false positive.

Author: Dmitriy Kuznetzoff
License: Freeware
Requires: Win 2000/03/08/XP/Vista/7

Direct software download: http://www.ziddu.com/download/16185086/Universal_Virus_Sniffer_uVS_3.69_Portable_Eng.zip.html

Fantastic shooting gallery style game for iProducts

2011-08-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

Most of the happy iPhone/iPod/iPad owners are constantly searching for the good and free applications. In this post, I would like to present Rage HD – free game, created specifically for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. HD version provides higher resolution textures that are optimally viewed on a 4th generation device or the iPad.

RAGE comes to your mobile device with the hit of the wastelands, Mutant Bash TV! This intense first-person rail shooter casts you in the starring role of a post-apocalyptic game show where you’ll be stalked by hungry mutants while you scour pulse-pounding levels for ammo and cash pick-ups. Make a deal with J.K Stiles, the show’s menacing host, and see if you have what it takes to survive this carnage-filled carnival of death!

Experience high resolution graphics, including an exclusive HD version for the newest generation of iPhone*, iPod Touch and iPad, coupled with dynamic music and sound effects.

iTunes Rating is 4.5 for the latest version and average rating 4 for all application releases.

Screenshots:

iTunes website: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rage-hd/id400707675

Burn CD and DVD with freeware Nero competitor

2011-07-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

If you make a software inventory on your computer, most likely you can find a program which is able to burn audio CD, as part of the default package. Most software media players like iTunes, Winamp, or Windows Media Player are equipped with a module allowing you to burn music to your CDs. However, you may find the set of available features is basic and lack any advanced capabilities.

Using a dedicated burning program gives you the flexibility to burn music, video, and other types of files to CD, DVD, and even Blu-ray, giving you more possibilities on the way you use and store your digital media. There are several well-known and respected packages, like Nero, that may give you what you want, by for price, and the price might be quite high. Therefore, we would like to present in this post one of the best freeware utilities for CD and DVD burning, which is mostly competitive with Nero, and can be recommended as free replacement for the users.

CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multi-language interface. The software is free for any type of use, even for commercial purposes. It does not include adware, spyware, or any other hidden malicious components. The portable version of the software, not requiring installation on the Hard Disk, is available.

List of Features

Create Data-CDs/DVDs

Burn any Data on CD-R/CD-RW/DVD+R/DVD-R/DVD+RW/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM/BD/HD-DVD, including double layer mediums.
Burn mp3-CDs to store many audio files on one single disc.
Create bootable discs.
Disc spanning: Spread data on multiple discs.
Verify written Data automatically after burning process.
Use either the internal browser to add your files or the intuitive Drop-Box to drag and drop files directly from any Windows Explorer window.
Save your compilations for creation of backups
Burn on-the-fly and with buffer-underrun protections.
Import previous (ISO 9660) sessions and edit existing file structure on CD/DVD.
Quick- and full-erase disc.
Copy data discs (possible copy-protection is not bypassed).
Retrieve recorder and disc information.

Create Audio-CDs

Create Audio-CDs from the following formats: MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC, WMA, APE, MPC, WV (WavPack).
Add single or multiple tracks from existing audio-CDs directly to your new compilation without ripping tracks before (add cda-files).
Play audio-files with integrated audio player.
Gapless audio-CDs supported (disc-at-once-mode).
Import M3U or WPL playlists or Nero audio compilations (NRA).
Support for ReplayGain.
Import CUE sheets.
Export audio compilations as M3U playlist and Cue sheet.
Create mixed-mode discs.

ISO features

Burn ISO files to CD.
Create your own ISO files.
Convert bin- and nrg-files to ISO.
Save CDs/DVDs as ISO file to disc.

Other features

Simple cover printing feature for data- and audio-discs.
LightScribe integration.
Command line version.
Supports most IDE, USB, Firewire and SCSI drives.
Integrated option to enable access to drive for restricted users.
Multi-language interface.
Online update.

If you are going to use the WMA format and don't have Windows Media Player 9 or higher installed, you also need to download and install the Microsoft Windows Media Player.

Screenshots (click to enlarge):

Developers’ website: http://cdburnerxp.se/en/home

Direct Download (portable version): http://www.ziddu.com/download/15777506/CDBurnerXP-4.3.8.2568.zip.html

Writing a Novel? Get Free Assistant!

2011-07-10T20:55:00.000-07:00

yWriter is a portable standalone application which runs on Windows PCs, and does not require installation on your Hard Drive. It doesn't need or use an internet connection, and all data is stored on your own computer. You may want to explore the utility if you are writing story or novel. It will help you to arrange your plot, create scenes, and configure your novel professional way. To help you in getting through complicated plats, you can add descriptions, status, goals, scene notes, viewpoint details, and more. The same way, you can also create character bios with images, location list and details, and a storyboard.

Main Features

* Organize your novel using a 'project'.
* Add chapters to the project.
* Add scenes, characters, items and locations.
* Display the word count for every file in the project, along with a total.
* Save a log file every day, showing words per file and the total, tracking properly your progress.
* Save automatic backups at user-specified intervals.
* Allow multiple scenes within chapters.
* Viewpoint character, goal, conflict and outcome fields for each scene.
* Multiple characters per scene.
* Storyboard view, a visual layout of your work.
* Re-order scenes within chapters.
* Drag and drop of chapters, scenes, characters, items and locations.
* Automatic chapter renumbering.

Screenshots (click to enlarge)

Website: http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html

Direct Download: http://www.spacejock.com/files/yWriter5.zip

Free Google Books Downloader

2011-07-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

More and more people use the multiple portable electronic devices, like eReaders, netbooks, smartphones, and table computers for reading books. It is definitely not the same as holding in your hands a paper book, but nevertheless it has multiple advantages, like amount of the books you can store on the small device, huge choice, and saving time for book shopping or library visits.

Google Books can be a good source for eBooks for you. Currently, you can purchase books (U.S. only) or download more than 3 million free books from anywhere in the world using this service.

As announced by Google, the aim of this project is to provide users with their own bookshelf on hand, no matter where they are. Purchased or downloaded books can be read using a desktop browser, as well as through mobile devices based on the Android operating system or iOS. Additionally, the books can be read on any e-reader with Adobe Digital Editions software.

However, as opposed to the Picasa service which provides an access to photos, the Google Books service does not allow users to download free electronic editions without digital copy protection and use them on other devices.

Google Books Downloader is a little software that allows you to bypass this limitation and to save these books in PDF or JPEG format. Note that it supports only the books marked as "full view".

The only thing it takes to download book is the URL Link of the book provided by Google Books service.

Just paste the link and hit Start to begin the downloading process.

Website: http://www.gbooksdownloader.com/

Direct Downloading Link: http://www.ziddu.com/download/15580968/gbooks.exe.html

Free Real-Time Spell Checker for Internet Explorer

2011-06-21T23:07:00.000-07:00

If you still use Internet Explorer (and many people still are), you definitely miss one important feature. Let me guess – it is a real-time spell checker. Spekie freeware utility, designed by Versoworks, will fill the gap.

Main Features

• The first and only real time dedicated spell checking solution for IE.

• The first and only spell checker that can use one or more dictionaries simultaneously.

• The first and only spell checker for the 64 bit version of IE.

• Translated to 30 different languages and with 30 dictionaries available.

• Optionally spell check single and/or multiple line edit fields.

• Add and manage words in per-language user dictionaries.

• Ability to configure the highlight of misspellings; suitable for the visually impaired.

• Works with CRM systems like Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

• Improve productivity; no more waiting until you're done typing and clicking buttons to spell check!

Installing Dictionaries

If you have Speckie installed, all dictionaries can be installed by selecting the 'Open' option when prompted, after clicking the link to download. Alternatively, double clicking the downloaded .sdinstall file will also install the dictionary.

Activation

Once installation is completed, start an instance of Internet Explorer. It should prompt you to enable Speckie. If it does, select the Enable button. If you don't receive a prompt, you'll have to enable Speckie manually. In Internet Explorer, under the Tools menu, select the Manage add-ons menu item. In the appearing window, find Speckie in the list of add-ons, select it, then click the Enable button. Once Speckie is enabled, it will function in new windows/tabs only, not any existing windows/tabs.

Configuration

To configure Speckie, you'll need to access the Speckie Settings. You can access the Settings via the main Tools menu in Internet Explorer, via the context menu of an edit field or by navigating Internet Explorer to about:Speckie.

Developers’ website: http://www.speckie.com/

Downloading page: http://www.speckie.com/dload/

Free Portable MP3 Cutter and Editor

2011-06-12T22:50:00.000-07:00

If you do not belong to the people who write the music and create sophisticated sound effects, you may not need complicated and features-rich audio editor utility. But, as regular computer user, you still have to deal once a while with need to modify mp3 tracks on your PC.

Just several possible situation of non-professional mp3 modification:

· Trimming audio file to create personalized ringtone for your mobile phone.

· Changing volume for your audio clip for various purposes.

· Creation of fade out and fade in sound effects, while preparing sound track for your slide show.

If you mentally prepare inventory of all activities you do with audio files on your PC, you will definitely be able to add other situation, when you need simple and straightforward mp3 file editing.

Free portable utility from MuseTips - MP3 Cutter and Editor – will be quite handy for all situations mentioned above and many other.

The following commands are supported:

· Delete Selected: Deletes selected part from the mp3 document.

· Delete Unselected: Deletes unselected part from the mp3 document.

· Change Volume: Changes audio volume by specifying a percentage value.

· Maximize Volume: Increases volume as high as possible without distortion.

· Fade In: Gradually increases the volume throughout the selection.

· Fade Out: Gradually decreases the volume throughout the selection.

· Convert to Stereo: Duplicates mono track to make a stereo track.

· Convert to Mono: Mixes all channels to make a mono track.

Website: http://www.musetips.com/free-mp3-cutter-and-editor.html

Direct Download: http://www.ziddu.com/download/15341681/MP3Cutter_Portable.zip.html

Windows 7 (32-bit) Portable Tweaker

2011-06-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

Windows 7 Little Tweaker is a small and simple to use utility that let you easily activate a few useful extras for Microsoft Windows 7 32-bit platforms.

Windows 7 Little Tweaker is a portable application, you need no install process, just extract the file from the zip archive, right click on the w7lt12.exe file and run as administrator.

This version of the awards winning utility supports now all the versions of Windows 7 32-bit (there are statements that this utility works fine on Windows 7 64-bit as well), do not use this tool with Windows XP or other Windows platforms.

More information can be found in the included readme.txt file.

Developers’ Blog: http://leelusoft.blogspot.com/2010/03/windows-7-little-tweaker-version-12.html

Direct Download: http://www.ziddu.com/download/15245804/W7LT12.zip.html

Freeware for Saving, Keeping, and Reading Web Documents

2011-05-28T18:58:00.000-07:00

More time you spend online, more activities you transfer from the other methods to purely Internet processing and operations, more you need the utility which will save and organize the information retrieved from Internet to be manipulated as regular files. There is a frequent need to save PDF's or Web pages to be used later (for tickets receipts, orders, books, Manuals, or anything you want to keep) and get them arranged that you will have no problems finding them later. With free small utility you can now save any web documents to the special "Web" folder within the "Documents" folder (or "My Documents" for pre Windows 7).

The WebReader application can be accessed from the football/Soccer icon in the system tray (near the clock on the Task Bar). It basically allows quick and easy access to these saved documents, and you can view, print and browse these files any time later within the application. You can also organize your documents by creating sub-folders in Windows Explorer and navigating them easily within this application.

When using Internet Explorer you can save the current page with shortcut operation - by pressing Ctrl + s, but make sure you save the document in the 'Web' folder. Anytime you want to access this document just use Web-eReader to locate and open it. It is quick and easy; double click the Football Icon and double click on your document.

Developers’ website: http://www.rabitsoft.co.uk/WebReader/Web-eReader.html

Direct Download: http://www.ziddu.com/download/15160703/WebReader.exe.html