Battlefield Heroes is a third person, online only action game. It’s free-to-play, supported by optional micro transactions, and can only be launched through your web browser. It’s created by EA DICE, the developer behind the famous Battlefield series.

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Travis B. Check out his freeware games blog here].

War is an ugly, bloodstained affair. When two nations engage in it, lives are ruined, families forever destroyed, and generations of nationalistic tension are usually the most defining outcome. But reality is depressing, and very often completely lacking in bright colors and comical mishaps. For those of us who like our wars a little more cute and cuddly, Battlefield Heroes comes to the rescue. In this free-to-play 3rd person shooter, its all about the laughs. Set in a happier version of World War 2, this multiplayer, online only game breaks free of more than a few industry trends. With its cartoon graphics, rapid fire action, and generally upbeat presentation, it looks like a welcome relief from the surplus of grim action titles we’ve been seeing. So does Battlefield Heroes deliver the goods, or is it all flash and no bang?

• Graphics: The first thing any player will notice is the pleasing Saturday morning cartoon feel. The sky is a cheery blue, the buildings look like the work of Walt Disney’s contractor, and the vehicles like a child’s idea of their real world counterparts. Of course that’s a good thing in this context. All in all, the whole game world fits together well. The only real complaint is that the lack of rag doll death animations is painfully obvious, especially given the seamless fluidity of everything else here.
• Sound: The folks who did the audio did a good job. Weapon noises are well done, emotes are accompanied by recognizable gibberish, and the theme music is catchy. Point in fact, I can hear the music even now. Still, sound effects do repeat quite a bit, and more attention to ambient noise is definitely in order.
• Gameplay: Battlefield Heroes is an action arcade game through and through. Players choose from one side, three classes, then find a match, and jump into the action. It plays like a cross between team deathmatch and king of the hill, with various strategic hotspots up for grabs scattered around the map. The classes break down into: soldier, commando, and gunner. With the soldier being your utility grunt, the commando your sneaky sniper, and the gunner a slower moving heavy. Each class can use any vehicle, and has a unique set of upgradable abilities, all of which play to their strengths.
• Controls: have clearly been designed to be efficient and intuitive, and are never an issue. Even piloting planes is straightforward and newbie friendly. The game’s mandatory match finder is also worth a mention. It takes stock of your character level and recent performance, and drops you into a server it thinks will work with you. It does a decent job.
• Character Customization: You have the ability to customize your character’s appearance, gear, and skills, and most everybody takes advantage of this. It’s not all that unusual to see a parrot shouldered commando bedecked in an Admiralty uniform, ducking for cover. Gamers gain game money by playing, and can buy a more potent form of game cash from the item store using a credit/debit card. Cash can then be used to purchase new clothes, weapons, experience point bonuses, and even emotes. The better merchandise generally requires you to spend a little real world money. Fortunately for cheap gamers (like myself), the game is enjoyable without having to whip out your bank card. But you will occasionally be playing at a disadvantage.
• Replayability: I got addicted to Battlefield Heroes. Its joyously callous cartoon violence appeals to me (confirming that I’ve got the mind of a child). While the combat lacks the depth of most modern shooters, the upgrades for each class do a lot to make up for it. Unfortunately, those upgrade paths are fairly short. All in all, gamers should be able to get some good play time in before things become stale. Hopefully the near future will see the addition of more maps, vehicles, and weapons. As it stands, you’ll like this title, but there isn’t enough here to keep you playing forever.

The verdict: Battlefield Heroes does a good job. With its match finder, well balanced classes, and lack of friendly fire, its the sort of game that could appeal to a wide audience. While you can indirectly buy yourself into the higher levels, the game does a good job keeping the sharks out the of kiddie pool. For those who want a break from serious titles, Battlefield Heroes is a breath of fairly fresh air.

Compatibility: Windows XP or Vista. Requires a graphics card with 64mb of dedicated video memory, a broadband internet connection, and one of the major web browsers.

Go to the Battlefield Heroes page.

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].You can focus on a wall by double-clicking it. This will cause you to fly-in so you only look at that wall. You’ll be able to see the edges of the adjacent walls and the floor while you’re focused on one wall, so you can double click on the edge to move from one wall to the next. Don’t worry! The four walls and the floor makes your desktop seem more like diorama than another cubicle. You can throw icons on to the wall to hang them there or slide them across the floor and they’ll bump into other icons. You can use this to throw files to the recycle bin or into some of the desktop widgets that integrates E-mail, Facebook, or Twitter. These widgets will allow you to throw a file into them and then start a new message with the file attached. You can also pin sticky notes to the walls so you can write down notes to yourself. You’re limited to two (2) notes in the free version. Double click to edit a sticky note or right-click to add one.

Your normal right-click context menu is replaced with an easy to use circle menu where you can choose different features of BumpTop. You can still access the normal right-click menu (with some additions) under the More… selection. All of these selections, as you can see, also come with keyboard shortcuts so you can really work how you do.

One great feature of BumpTop is the ability to increase or decrease icon size. If you use something frequently, why not make it bigger so it’s an easier target to hit? You can increase the size of icons to make them easier to access. With the physics that are implemented by BumpTop, this also increases their weight and they won’t get bumped out of the way so easily. It could also make the Recycle Bin an easier target if you want to throw files away.

Some of the practical uses of BumpTop include searching and piling. You can search your desktop for a file just by typing and any matching icons will be highlighted. You can also access the search through the right-click menu. You can also pile icons together to tag them as related and to keep them physically together. To pile icons, you just highlight them and go to the pile icon. This will move all the icons on to a stack and you can then double-click on the pile to spread them out in a separated grid or right-click and fan them out.

Your mileage may vary, but BumpTop measured in as a 60-75 MB process for me and was a 10.7MB download for the installer. You can optionally configure BumpTop to start with Windows. Otherwise you can start it manually and close it with a system tray icon. It will remember your icon layout each time it starts up.

I used BB Flashback Express to record a video of going through the opening tutorial, so you can see some of the animations in action in the below video.

You can configure a number of settings: icons physics, photo frame cycling, and the desk widgets which allow integration to e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter. You can also change some of the visuals and graphic card usage. If you have multiple monitors, it looks like BumpTop can only be used on one desktop at a time. You can change the theme that BumpTop uses or just specify individual images for each wall/floor. You can have your current Windows background be the floor and then specify images for each wall or leave it with the theme defaults. You can see how to install a theme and browse the growing number of themes to really customize it to your liking. There are some really cool themes out there!

Another cool thing that BumpTop adds to your desktop comes in the form of Photoframes. Photoframes allow you to run a slide show from a local directory or an online source like a Flickr RSS feed. They can be configured with how frequently they update their source and how often they change images.

If you’re curious for more info you can watch a TED talk on the software.

Version tested: 1.0 build 3038

Compatibility: A 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7, with latest service packs. Intel 915 integrated graphics or Nvidia GeForce 6200 or ATI X300 or better with updated drivers. OpenGL 2.0 driver support required (may require additional drivers available at the bumptop drivers page).

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 10.73 megs).

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].

Server Quest is built using Adobe Flash, so any Flash-enabled browser should be able to take you to the site. You start off by learning about the main characters, some are allies and some are annoyances, like Chase the computer-destroying sales guy.

Your objective is just to keep the office running smoothly. Different events will come up as the days go along. You walk Matt around in the isometric 3D world and interact with other people in the office.

You solve problems…

answer trivia…

and play games, to represent solving real-world problems.

Some of the games are a little difficult, regardless of whether you know the technical side or not, but it’s good for a challenge. You can select what chapters to play, so it could make for a good lunch break visit, unless it reminds you too much of your work, of course!

Server Quest II is the follow-up to the original Server Quest. This time it’s not built with Flash, but instead Microsoft’s Silverlight. (If you experience problems with Silverlight causing your mouse to freeze, you can check out my article here for a work-around.) The graphics are quite a bit improved, but still keep the same pixelated style that worked well for the first one. Server Quest II pulls double duty this time in being a thinly veiled promo again for TechNet and Silverlight.

This time you get to play as either Matt or Alicia…

and you choose a role for yourself. I’m not really sure what changes these choices cause, but if you figure it out, please post in the comments. My speculation is that it might change some of the topics that trivia covers but I couldn’t swear by it.

Server Quest II is pretty much more of the same: You play through a day in the life of an IT professional and get all the benefits and quirks that come along with it. There are different games and puzzles including Boss Launch and a number of other entries from the Server Quest Contest to make the best Silverlight game.

You play through the game and learn about TechNet offerings and test yourself along the way. You might also check out another Microsoft game made with Silverlight that takes more of a gameshow approach, Are you Certifiable?

The humor in Server Quest is painfully close to real life sometimes while at other times it’s (fortunately) exaggerated. As you complete the different tasks, you’ll earn “geek points” as your overall score. When all is said and done, you can see how your score stacks up against the Top 10 Leaderboard.

Check out Microsoft TechNet’s Server Quest and Server Quest II.

If you’ve seen the previous incarnation of this program you’ll be happy to know that this new version is a complete departure from its predecessor, completely re-written in JAVA. It avoids or circumvents all of the problems/issues that afflicted the previous incarnation including false positives reported by some anti-malware programs, restrictions on some (adult) sites, memory issues, and issues with registry entries and drivers that the program installed and left on the system (in truth, by the time the last version of Tubemaster plus was released all of these were actually already remedied, but I wanted to make sure to mention that these issues were a thing of the past).

Improvements also include a better looking user interface (the built-in browser of the predecessor is done away with). In fact the only feature of TM+ that I liked that TM++ does not have is portability. Here are more notes on this program:

• How it works: once you launch TM++ (it will reside in the system tray), use your browser to navigate to the video or audio that you want to download. TM++ will display a notification and start downloading your media as soon as it starts playing in the browser. You will need to keep the browser window open for the duration of the download in order for TM++ to download your media properly.
• Media conversion: on-the-fly. Includes a couple dozen conversion presets, my favorite of which is the quick MP3 extraction.
• Audio/video search: the search functions are very impressive. For video search, you can specify which site you want to search from a rather expansive list of sites.
• Virus/malware free: a clean bill of health from Virustotal.

The verdict: I’ve seen the development trajectory of this program and I think that developer deserves a lot of credit for taking this software in the right direction and creating what is undoubtedly an excellent product. But what makes this product noteworthy compared to others in its category is its ability to download from almost any site, including ant-leech encrypted media. It can be independently launched when needed and does not install itself as an extension in your browser.

Although TM++ is no longer portable (like TM+ was), this is understandable given that it relies on a number of other apps/technologies (including JAVA, which it will install if absent). Overall I highly recommend this.

Version tested: 1.0 beta

Compatibility: WinAll. Requries JAVA. Will soon be available on Linux and Mac.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 180K).

DRoster is what I’d describe as niche software. Not everybody is going to have a use for employee scheduling software, but for those whom do need it, this could be a life saver. I imagine DRoster being a very welcome find for many small businesses or organizations that are burgeoning past the point of being manageable through a simple spreadsheet. Also, I feel it’s nice to be aware of DRoster as it could come in handy for other purposes for those of us who tend to reverse engineer everything and think in work-arounds.

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].

DRoster comes in two versions: a traditional application that would be installed on your computer or as a web page that’s accessible from any Internet-enabled device. Each version has a little different feel to it, but both are free. I personally prefer the web version and will cover that in slightly greater depth.

You can use your free DRoster to schedule up to 300 shifts. DRoster will hold up to 300 shifts, but you can continuously use it by deleting old shifts as required. For an unlimited number of shifts, buy DRoster.

DRoster, or ezDRoster for the online version, allows you to create employee schedules that meet all of your requirements. Let’s say you have a front desk that must always be manned and different positions work different shifts. You can handle these sorts of quirks and get a handle on people’s hours, where they’re working from, and avoid schedule conflicts from being under-staffed or over-committing any employees.

Web Version

For the web version, you’ll start off by registering your company and creating a user name for your admin account. From there, start off by creating Locations. These might be different office branches or they could be the different positions that need manned like fry cook, cash register, drive-thru, etc.

Next create Roles. These state the different responsibilities and positions that need filled. You should choose a unique icon to represent each role as well.

Then add Shifts and what days/hours these shifts take place. You can also set what requirements you have for each shift. From the running example in the screenshot, let’s say you require one person doing Phone Support on the night shift. This will throw a little exclamation mark on that shift anytime it is not filled. This way you can make sure somebody is always filling necessary roles.

After you have shifts created, you can add people. These would be the names of employees.

You can only assign one role to each person, so things might get complicated if you have somebody serving double-duty. But, a great thing about the online version, you can assign them a user name and password. Then individuals are able to login and see the schedule. If you make them an Administrator, they’ll have all the same capabilities as you. Otherwise, as a standard user, they’ll be able to login and only view the schedule.

Users can also request unavailable times if you allow it through the web interface. This will allow them to put in a time, say that they have a dentist appointment, and you won’t schedule them to work a shift that overlaps that. You can approve or deny these unavailability requests as the administrator. They’ll show up as pink squareson the schedule and will inform you which shifts are blocked due to this conflict.

This will bring you back to the main dashboard and you can assign individuals through templates or get to the other management areas through the menu bar.

You can see the schedule through three different views. They each allow a different perspective so you can make sure the schedule is correct. When a standard user logs in, they’ll see much the same thing, with the different views but the Manage, Templates, and Add Shift buttons are all disabled. The different views allow you to see:

Detailed View

Weekly View

Person View

The Administrator is able to customize the schedule’s appearance by controlling the Display parameters. So you can specify Military time, date format, and which days. Everybody that logs in will be able to see the Legend from the menu bar. This will explain what the different color codings and icons represent.

The final feature to point out with the web version is the Templates feature. This allows you to create a single day or multi-day template that you can use for new weeks so you don’t have to start from scratch each time. You can apply the template and then make any changes to accomodate different needs or unavailabilities.

Application Version

The application version is much the same as the desktop version but with a different interface and you lose the features of letting employees log in and view the schedule. You set it up in much the same way and then see and set the schedule with different “planners” instead of views.

To make up for the lack of allowing others to login and see the schedule, you can create a variety of reports to print out and post for others to see.

Along with printing, you can export these reports to PDF, BMP, HTML, Text, Excel (OLE, XML), RTF, TIFF image, or JPEG image formats.

Pick your preference for the Web version or the application. Of course, you can try both out since they’re free.

You can download or access the web version at the DRoster website (approx. 5.8 megs for the local installable version).

There is an impressive range of excellent freeware Windows enhancements and tweaks. This posting will present forty three excellent additions to Windows that you will like.

When I first thought of this post, I more or less knew what programs I wanted to list here. The common theme that brought these together was that they were all really cool Windows “enhancements”: i.e. apps that tweak or change the way we work with files, folders, applications, or the system environment itself (or, apps that brings functionality to the Windows environment that could or should have been a built-in option in Windows ).

Two more things to say before presenting the list itself; the first is that this list might not include some well known titles because in some cases I shied away from Windows enhancement apps that try to do many things at once in favor of simpler, more straightforward ones. The second is to be aware that many of these have overlapping functions and hotkeys that you wouldn’t necessarily want installed on the same system at the same time (you also dont want to overburden your PC, so install selectively).

Note: this post took a long time to write, so please Stumble or Digg!

Here’s the list:

1- Fences: do you ever wish that there was some way to organize your icons into general, clearly-labeled areas on your desktop that you could move or organize without needing to deal with each icon individually? If so, you’re in luck, as this is exactly what Fences does. You can create floating areas on your desktop, label them, and ove icons of any type into them; you can then re-arrange these by moving entire units around, etc. Fences will do two more things for you (1) it will preserve/save icon locations on your screen, and (2) it will allow you to double click an empty area on the desktop to hide all icons.

Note that Fences is still in beta and seems to exhibit some bugs on some machines. It works fine on my XP (with XP’s Dr. Watson debugger disabled).

2- QTTabbar: ever imagined using explorer windows in a Firefox style tabbed interface? This is essentially what this (terrific) freeware does, but it also manages to deliver a range of nice functions, including the ability to browse contents of folders without clicking into them (see screenshot), the option to bookmark groups of open tabs, a searchbox for filtering files, image previews on mouse-hover, as well as a slew of others.

QTTabbar is extendible through a handful of plugins that provide extra functionality, including a “folder memo” plugin to add notes to folders.

3- Filebox Extender: this one adds new buttons on the title bar next to the minimize, maximize, and close buttons that provide favorite folders and recent folders access anywhere (including file open/save dialogs). Other functions: a “stay on top” pushpin button, and a window roll-up button that hides all but the title bar of a window.

There are many apps that are designed to access favorite folders and files, but this one is one of the most original and innovative.

4- Desktop Media: this may be familiar to you if you’ve worked with Liunx. Desktop Media is a free program that creates automatic shortcuts on the desktop whenever you plug in a USB drive, CD, or other media. The shortcuts will automatically disappear when the media is ejected.

This program also provides an interesting option whereby hardlink rather than shortcuts can be (optionally) created on NTFS drives (see “Link Shell Extension” below for more on hardlinks).

5- Sizer: allows you to you right click on the “maximize”button on the title bar in order to quickly change the size and/or placement of the active Window using a selection of pre-set profiles. You can add your own user-defined sizes and placements.

While this function hardly sounds revolutionary, I will tell you that once you start using this one you will wonder how you managed without it. Sizer will prove to be very useful and is in fact one of my first installs on a new machine.

6- Folder Menu: this is a terrific little free app that displays favorite folders anywhere on Middle mouse click or using a hotkey. It can even invoke favorite folders in Windows and MS Office open/save dialogs.

This is a new Autohotkey-based program that deserves to be more well known; since installing it it’s become one of my favorites, and I am betting that you will like it as well.

7- Folder Size: ever noticed that Windows’ detail folder view does not display sizes for folders? Well guess what, this free Windows extension adds a column to Windows’ “detailed” view that displays folder sizes. Check out my review for how to get this set up.

The latest information as I write this is that a new version 2.5 is about to be released, so watch out for that.

8- WinSplit Revolution: a freeware program that brings instant, versatile docking and resizing of windows to the sides of the and/or corners of the screen. But what is really nice is that the program allows you to control the placement of your windows by using hotkeys, by using a “virtual numpad” control that is prompted by clicking on the app’s icon in the system tray, or by so-called “drag’n go”, which involves moving your window around the screen while pressing Ctrl+Alt (whereupon it will display visual previews of the resize area as you move your window around - see screenshot).

For another interesting program that offers a similar function check out PowerResizer, which is also excellent.

9- Q-Dir: is a free dual-pane file manager that is simply terrific. It offers a slew of nice functions, including bookmarking favorite folders, a search box for filtering files and folders, the ability to save configurations of open panes and folders, and a whole host of other nifty options. What is quite innovative about Q-Dir are the nifty buttons on the toolbar that let the user access multiple configurations of file panes, quickly and easily.

I personally use Q-Dir as a replacement for Windows explorer, such that clicking on a folder in Windows will open it using Q-Dir; In that sense it is the ultimate Windows enhancement. (See my original review of the program for instructions on how to do this, find favorite feature #6).

10- Taskbar shuffle: this freeware Windows extension gives you the ability to reorder the tabs in your taskbar (on the bottom of your desktop) by dragging them at will. Very cool!

11- Standalone Stack: this freeware allows you to create folder shortcuts that, when clicked, open up as Mac-style hovering icon stacks. It supports two styles of icons “grid” and “fan”. The screenshot here depicts a grid-style such shortcut that I strategically placed in the “Quick Launch” area.

12- TaskSwitchXP: this is a freeware Alt+Tab replacement. It’s my favorite because it is straightforward and simply scrolls across the different open apps and windows while (reliably) displaying a screenshot of the selected app. It strength is function rather than form, and I like the fact that it bucks the 3D vista-style and the Mac Expose trends (but if you must have these, check out WinFlip, Shock Aero, and DExpose2).

13- Link Shell Extension: is a freeware app that allows you to right click on files and folders and create instant (and effortless) hardlinked clones, with the single stipulation that your hard drive should be NTFS formatted.

A clone is NOT a copy. A little known piece of information is that a file in Windows XP and Vista can be in two places at once (as long as the hard drive is NTFS formatted and not FAT). Suppose that you keep videos of “The Sopranos” in their “Sopranos” folder, but that you had set up a “Favorite TV shows” folder where you wanted to keep a list of some of the TV-show episodes you like the most. If your hard drive is NTFS formatted, you can keep a clone of that video in that folder that does not occupy extra space on your hard drive (rather than create a duplicate copy.

14- Launchy: this is a freeware launcher for apps and files where, instead of clicking on shortcuts or icons of the programs or files you want to open, you type in the name of the program you are seeking in a search box and select it from a list of results (the program will refine the list of selections as-you-type, which is a very nice effect).

By default this program will monitor (index) the execs and shortcuts in your start menu but can be configured to look anywhere for any file type you want. Lastly I will say that once you start using this I guarantee you will not want to use your computer without it. Some good Launchy alternatives (also free): Find and Run Robot, Key Launch and Keybreeze.

15- Freesnap: ever wanted to snap just one or two edges of your window that you’re working with right to the side of the screen? Freesnap is a freeware that lets you do just that (see screenshot). It will also let you use hotkeys to quickly send your window to any of the 4 corners of the screen (or the center), and perform a number of window-resizing operations.

16- Everything: this one is a free desktop file search program that works ONLY on NTFS formatted drives. The reason: it relies on the Master File Table of the NTFS volume to build its index of files, rather than constantly scanning and scouring the hard drive. What this means is that Everything will always be up to date with all file changes that occur on your hard drive.

The reason this one is included in this post is that more than any other program it has changed the way I work with Windows (with the possible exception of Launchy, above). I now find myself constantly right-clicking “Search Everything” on folders in order to locate the files that I am working with. Being able to right click on my computer in order to find a file or files anywhere on my drives is an extremely powerful thing to be able to do.

17- 3RVX: this freeware allows you to control your system’s volume (up/down/mute) through hotkeys. Its not the most feature-packed utility of its kind (Volumouse might have that distinction), but it just may be the most pleasant to use, looks really pretty (emulates the MacOSX volume bezel, but is skinnable and comes with many other cool skins).

This is another one of those apps I have to have installed on my machine.

18- OSD Mute: a very simple free app that does a very simple thing: displays a “Mute On” message on your desktop near the system tray when the system volume is muted. While this is not quite revolutionary, it is so useful that I install it on all my machine, and is really an option that should have come built into Windows.

19- Dexpot: this is without a doubt the best, most feature rich and advanced freeware virtual desktop program for Windows. It doesn’t offer some of the eye candy that you might find in some others (animated 3D cube transitions between desktops, for example), but what it lacks in style in makes up for in substance (e.g. rules, hotkeys, icon placements on different desktops). If you are unfamiliar with virtual desktops imagine being able to work on, say, your Office applications in one desktop, then flipping to another that has your browser/webmail, and then flipping to a third that displays, say, your media player.

One thing you can do with Dexpot that I have not found anywhere else is to actually designate different icons to different desktops. This alone makes it the undisputed number one virtual desktop app as far as I am concerned.

20- Infotag Magic: a freeware shell extension that tweaks Windows to display informational tooltips when hovering over a range of filetypes, including audio files, text files, shortcuts, and executables (see screenshot).

File extension types supported: wp3, wma, ape, and Ogg Vorbis (for audio), txt, ini, log, bat, diz, bak, and que files (for text files), exe, dll, ocx and lnk (for executables/shortcuts). I would have liked to have tooltips support for video files; if that’s something you want it is provided in the latest beta of MediaInfo.

21- AudioShell: a freeware shell extension that allows you to view and edit audio files tags directly in Windows Explorer (for individual files or groups of files). It adds tabs in the audio file’s right-click “properties” dialog that enable you to edit tag information on the fly. (Including album art, which you can easily import into the Audioshell tab and save it into the audio file itself.)

Audioshell will also display your audio file tag information inside tooltips when you mouse-over your audio files, and will add additional audio related columns that can be displayed in Windows explorer’s folder “detail” view (e.g. Title, Album, Artist, etc.)

22- Stick: is an interesting freeware app that places dockable tabs on the sides of your screen that can contain a variety of functions, such as notes, RSS feeds, shortcuts for apps or favorite folders, etc.

The nice thing about this one is that the “dockable tab” effect works really well, and its a very interesting innovation on the typical Windows user interface.

23- Xentient Thumbnails: a freeware that automatically changes the icons for image files to appear as little thumbnail previews of the images themselves.

This means that the even in icon or tile view each individual image will display a thumbnail for its icon that reflects a preview of the image itself. It also means that your image files will display little thumbnails for their icons even when placed on the desktop (a nifty and rather unusual effect).

24- Thumbview: you might have noticed that some image file types (e.g. JPG, GIF, BMP and a few others). display preview thumbnails in Windows Explorer while others do not . What Thumbview does is provide support for 19 additional image file types such that Explorer is able to provide thumbnail previews for those as well. It also adds tooltips for image files in Explorer such that hovering over an image file displays its type, dimension, bitdepth, and filesize.

25- WinCDemu: a small, free, extension that adds to Windows the ability to mount disk images as virtual drives simply by double clicking on the image files. Supports .ISO, .IMG, .CUE, .BIN and .RAW disk images and an unlimited number of virtual drives.

Runs in the background with no user interface, and seamlessly integrates disk image files into Windows.

26- Allsnap: imagine that your windows had a little “magnetic field” around them such that if they came sufficiently close to each other they would simply snap together. This effect, which we have all seen employed by various apps (such as Winamp for example) is exactly what this freeware does. Very cool, and also configurable so that you could set exactly how many pixels around each window this “magnetic field ” should be in effect.

There is also, interestingly, a portable version of this app which I just discovered.

27- TeraCopy: this free program integrates itself with Windows to deliver accelerated file copying in many instances as well as the ability to pause and resume copy operations. It comes especially handy when copying or moving a large number of files such that the entire process will not break down if it encounters, say, a file error.

You have the option to set whether to have TeraCopy perform all file copy operations by default (which is what I do), just when invoked by the user, or only when the “Caps Lock” key is on.

28- HOBComment: this free Windows extension adds a context menu entry that allows users to instantly add a comment to files and folders (yes, folders, which normally you wouldn’t be able to add comments to in Windows). I’ve been looking for a long time and this remains my favorite way to add comments to files and folders (despite relatively sophisticated freeware general file tagging apps such as Tag2Find and Taggedfrog.

The one conspicuous drawback that afflicts HOBComment though is that it is sometimes unable to add comments to some file types, such as .MSI and MS Office files (forcing me to resort to right clicking properties/summary/comment in Windows to do so).

29- StyleFolder: this freeware adds a simple entry to the Windows context menu that makes it possible to change folder icons. And while there are a handful such apps, I like StyleFolder because it is simple and unassuming; but, more importantly, it saves the icon info within the folder rather than simply pointing to it, which means that folders retain their new, customized icons when they are moved to portable media or across the network, etc.

30- Unlocker: have you ever tried to move, delete, or perform other operations on a file or folder only to be notified that it is locked because it is being used by another process? Enter freeware Unlocker to the rescue. This software can (a) identify the process(es) that are using your files/folders and holding them hostage, and (b) will let you “unlock” these or optionally to kill the offending process so its no longer running.

Unlocker installs a convenient entry in the Windows context menu that can be used to right click any file or folder and investigate the processes that might be working with it, if any.

31- Send To Toys: this app will breathe new life into the “send to” entry in Windows’ context menu by making it extremely useful and customizable. There are a number of commands that “Send To Toys” can introduce into the send to menu, including send to clipboard, send to command prompt, send to run, send to trash, and send to quicklaunch. But what makes this program really useful is the ability to add your favorite folders to the send to menu, whereby you can quickly copy or move any item to them (pressing Shift as you use the send to folder command will move your files/items rather than copy them, while pressing ctrl+shift will copy a shortcut).

32- RBTray: minimize any window to the system tray by right-clicking on the “minimize” button. Simple with fairly low resource consumption.

What I like about this one is that is coexists very well with other Windows enhancements (aforementioned Sizer, for example), when some other apps like it do not.

33- Trayconizer: this interesting free app is for those programs that you use that you wished would simply minimize to the system tray every time by default. Trayconizer can create special, modified shortcuts to these apps that, when run, will make these always minimize to the system tray without any further intervention by the user.

34- Flashfolder: this freeware apps makes it easy to access your favorite folders in Windows’ open/save dialog (as well as that of MS Office). What is notable about FlashFolder, aside from it being extremely useful, is that in terms of coolness/form factor alone it scores extremely high points with me (check out the toolbar that add overlays on top of the open/save dialog in the screenshot to the right).

Aside from favorite folders, Flashfolder can also quickly access recently used folders and a number of other functions.

35- Folder Guide: this freeware lets you right click to access your favorite folders. Works on the desktop, in Windows’ open/save dialog, as well as the MS Office open/save dialog.

There are two ways to add your favorite folders to “Folder Guide”; from the settings, you could browse to the folder of your choice, or simply right click on the folder you want to add and use the “Folder Guide” context menu entry.

36- Shock Bookmark: another freeware app that, similar to Folder Guide above installs your favorite folders in your right click context menu and enables quick access to these on your desktop and in the Windows open/save dialog (but, interestingly, not in the MS Office open/save dialog for this one). Shock Bookmark goes one further in that it lets you access favorite apps as well as favorite files in the context menu in addition to folders.

Like Folder Guide, Shock Bookmark allows you to right click on a folder in order to add it to the app’s context menu. However, it also features “copy to” and “move to” functions on right click for quickly moving or copying your files to your bookmarked folders (similar to “Send to Toys” above).

37-Open Target Shell Extension: [XP only]. This extension adds a right click context menu entry to Windows that shows up when you right-click on shortcut files, giving the option to instantly open the target folder where the item actually resides. This saves the user a few steps that would otherwise be required right-clicking properties then “find target” on XP.

Vista users do not need this as this functionality is already built into that OS.

38- MenuApp: this tiny free app lets you create shortcuts to folders that, when clicked on, display a browsable, cascading-style menu similar to the Windows Start menu. You can create a shortcut folder any folder(s) you like and place them in all sorts of convenient places, such as the quick launch menu area, on your desktop, or within your favorite launcher app, etc.

39- Visual Subst: this freeware presents an interesting way to access favorite folders by mapping them as virtual drives that you could access from “My Computer”.

The idea is that this makes it easier to access these using on or two clicks from open/save dialogs or by navigating from anywhere all the way back to the root drive.

40- Visual Task Tips: [XP only] a lightweight freeware utility that brings thumbnail previews to minimized task bar items in Windows XP. Simply hover over a minimized taskbar button to display a preview pop-up (Windows Vista already has this functionality built in).

Check out my original Freewaregenius site design template in the screenshot!

41- Explorer BreadCrumbs: [XP only] a free Windows explorer extension that add a “breadcrumbs navigation” toolbar for folders in XP. The breadcrumb navigation method is already built into Windows Vista; it comprises a flat path structure whereby each “node” in the path is interactive and can be navigated at will in order to quickly move back and forth across the folder structure.

Note: QT Address Bar is another freeware that delivers the same functionality.

42- VSO Image Resizer: delivers image conversion and resizing as a function within the Windows explorer context menu. What is interesting about VSO Image resizer, aside from the fact that it does a great job, is that it allows for the creation of different size/format/quality profiles that make it easy for the user to right click and quickly perform multiple, different resizing operation while accessing their commonly used settings. Also allows for image processing in batch.

43- XnView Shell Extension: freeware that embeds a number of image-related operations into the Windows context menu, including an interesting image preview inside the right click menu. Other functions include the ability to edit image IPTC metadata and to resize image and/or convert them to other image formats on-the-fly.

Generally speaking one of the things that I often do and frequently recommend is to manage the programs that start automatically with Windows and limit these to the bare-bones minimum (using for example a program like Starter). This will guarantee that as more and more programs are added to your system they do not unnecessarily load up at once on startup, slowing down the boot process and unnecessarily overloading your system resources.

Of course, there is a price to pay for doing this: some programs would at times be desirable as startup programs, but maybe not at all times (depending on how you are going to use your system). Wouldn’t it be great if there was an easy way to control whether some programs automatically start with Windows such that they load only when you need them? This is exactly what Capster provides.

What Capster allows you to do is add “modified” shortcuts to your startup folder such that these applications only load on startup if the user allows them to do so by pressing the Caps Lock button (or, conversely, only if the Caps Lock button is not pressed, depending on your preference). The following is a quick’n dirty guide on how to use this software:

1. Use a startup programs management software to determine the items that currently launch on startup (I use Starter). Find the startup entries you would like to control with Capster; note the path to these because you will need it, then disable them.
2. Run Capster and point it to the desired executables. You will need to specify whether you want these to run on Caps on or Caps Off. Capster will automatically place these shortcuts in your startup folder.
3. Caps on vs. Caps off: there is a subtle difference. Caps on will force you to intervene every time to get these programs to launch on startup, so that the default is that they will not. Caps off will require your intervention only if you do NOT want them to start with Windows, such that the default is that they will.
4. That’s it. Press (or unpress) Caps Lock next time you boot or log-on to load the correct programs.

More notes on this software:

• Portable: unzip and run
• Creates modified shortcuts in the startup folder. You can delete these and replace them with the original program shortcuts to revert to the normal state.

The verdict: this is one of those programs where I imagine some people will be extremely excited about while others will have no use for. Either way it scores extremely high points in my book for originality and innovation. Oh, and did I mention that it works really well?

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (a mere 10K).

Do you believe in synchronicity? That’s when, for example, you may be feeling depressed and randomly come upon a book at a yard sale that really speaks to you and makes you feel a lot better. Or you decide to quit your job but the day before you do it they tell you that they’re laying you off with 6 months severance pay.

The reason I mention this is because I had a whole bunch of folders (43 folders to be exact) full of freeware that I downloaded over the past 12 months that I wanted to consolidate into a single folder. I was thinking about how best to do this and it so happened that I came upon this program by pure chance.

Here’s what you need to know about Suction:

1. Portable; unzip and run
2. Integrates into Windows’ context menu: from the about section
3. Two ways to use it; (1) run suction.exe and then drop all the folders you want to “unify” onto the program dialog, or (2) if the context menu entry is enabled, right click on the folder containing all the other folders you want to process.
4. Works recursively: all files within potentially complex folder structures will be scooped up and deposited in the parent directory.
5. De-duplication option: this setting (which you can toggle in the about section) removes dupes have the same name and content. Different versions of the file that have the same name, however, will NOT be deleted but rather will have a numbered suffix added to their filename (e.g. name-1, name-2).
6. Deletes all empty folders: once the consolidation of the files is over and done with. It should also display the number of suctioned files (if it does not do this then the consolidation has not been performed properly).
7. Use with care: once you consolidate your files there is simply no way to go back to the previous structure. This can be an especially hard lesson if you mistakenly right click “suction” on a folder and watch as the contents are flattened when you don’t want them to be and the directory structure removed.

The verdict: nice, small, and lightweight, and can really save you a lot of time. The only thing I found is that the program will at times NOT perform the consolidation if you move folders onto it, but will do it if you move the root folder onto it instead (but I am guessing this will be rectified in future versions).

Version tested: 1.0.6

Compatibility: WinAll

Go to the program page to download the latestoar version (approx 180K).

Imagine that you’re at work pulling reports from the database or working on spreadsheets, but that you also just absolutely need to follow developments in the Wimbeldon match that is going on at the same time, or a landmark speech by President Obama (that would be me in the latter case). Typically what I would do is use my headphones, minimize the browser or media player, and follow the audio alone. Except now multitaskers and bored workers everywhere can rejoice: with Double Vision you can do your work while having your video showing semi-transparently under your spreadsheet or whatever application you’re using.

studies have shown that worker’s productivity increases by 15% while they use Double Vision (yes I’m just making this up). The irony is that I was actually introduced to this software by a coworker (thanks DAK!). More notes below:

• Plays video from the internet: i.e. anything that you would use the browser to view; does not play local video files.
• Transparency: you can control the level of transparency you want through a slider.
• How to use: browse to or type in the URL of the website you want and navigate to your video. In some cases (e.g. for YouTube) Double Vision seems to automatically zoom onto the video and hide all other page contents; if not, resize Double Vision around the video such that only the video is showing. Finally press the “Go Double Vision” button on the top left, which will sort of “burn” the Double Vision semitransparent player onto your screen so it shows through all other windows.
• Hotkeys: Ctrl+Alt will bring the player back into focus, while Ctrl+Esc will exit the semitransparent state and allow you to use the controls. You can set it to mute the sound as well, although curiously it doesn’t automatically un-mute when you resume playing the video (for that you’ll have to go to your volume control dialog).
• Auto skins: an option where Double Vision automatically changes its skin to match that of the video service being used (for example Netflix, Hulu, and Youtube).

Wish list (or how this program can be even better)

• A redesign of the user interface: currently it looks somewhat … unprofessional; they could do a lot better.
• The ability to customize the hotkeys used.
• Hulu support: while both the website and the player purport Hulu support, I was not able to get Hulu videos playing on this (got page missing/404 errors). And yes I am in the US and can get it to play on other browsers.

The verdict: I would say this is a very innovative and interesting software that does exactly what it purports to do and does it quite well. I would be happier if they made it look better (as per my wish list above), but other than that I would recommend it to overworked people everywhere!

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista. Requires an internet connection

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 2.15 megs).

I recently used created clickmaps of my new Freewaregenius theme in order to shed light on what people were doing on my site. The results were very interesting to me and, I would imagine, they would be interesting to a lot of readers, especially those who have their own sites or blogs. I therefore created this post to share these clickmaps as well as some of the insights that came out of them.

Disclaimer: the tool used to create these clickmaps is not free, and therefore shall not be named. The original version of this posting did mention it but I have decided to remove it.

I will present two out of three clickmap options here: heamaps and confetti maps (which appear as little dots). I have decided not to post site overlay screenshots  (little bars next to links that represent the amount of clicking activity). The confetti clickmaps are my favorite, as they can be really insightful, as are the heatmaps, but I don’t care much for site overlays (which are also supported in Google Analytics, btw, although generally speaking I would say the Google Analytics site overlays are crap).

The test:

• I looked at the Freewaregenius home page only
• Monitored 5001 visits which generated 1366 clicks on Jun 8th and 9th, 2009.
• Important note: the current version of the tool used is not able to record clicks on some flash and Javascript elements on the page. Thus it did not record clicks on the “Featured Article” widget on top of the page, or the carousel next to it. It is also unable to record clicks on Google ads, on flash videos, or the “random posts” section in the bottom.

The clickmaps: entire-site JPEGS are too long for me to display in this blog posting without making the clickmaps very difficult to read. Therefore I am showing results for (a) top of the page, (b) middle of the page, and (c) bottom of the page seperately.

Top of page images: see above

Bottom of the page:

Middle of page:

The findings: I’ll split these into three sections A/B/C

(A) Issues that I’d already suspected that the clickmaps confirmed:

1. The searchbox on the top right is used heavily
2. The numbered-page navigation near the bottom is used heavily
3. The thumbnails (screenshots) in the first few postings are clicked heavily
4. Thumbnails in general are clicked on heavily as the primary source of information, even in cases were the posts themselves are not clicked into.
5. Posts that have a more general audience, such as games or email clients, get  alot more clicks than specialized posts (such as WinCdEMu, which didn’t get clicked on one time during the test period).

(B) Insights that are new or that I wasn’t paying attention to:

1. Users click and interact with the tabs in the header under the logo much more than I thought they did. I am glad to see some clicks on the Sitemap; I didn’t think anybody went there.
2. Users click on the “Freeware Top 20″ tab like crazy.
3. Posts near the top of the page and posts near the bottom are clicked on heavily. Posts in the middle are somewhat neglected or skipped over.
4. The tabbed javascript widget in the sidebar (recent/most commended/recent comments), gets some good use, which is interesting to know.
5. Browse by category: only 3 or 4 buttons in the black “browse by category” section are clicked on to any significant extent; Freewaregenius Picks, Games, and (possibly) Media players.
6. “Click to read more”: the red link at the bottom of each posting is not clicked at all. Users prefer to click on the post title instead.
7. Tag cloud: is very seldom clicked, although this may be due to its placement towards the end of the sidebar.
8. Blogroll: the sites in my “favorite freeware sites” section are clicked on heavily. I am giving these guys some serious traffic.
9. Lists in the footer: of the three lists in the footer (”Recent posts”, “Most commented”, and “Popular this month”), only the latter gets any clicks.

(C) My future plan of action:

1. Making better use of the tabs in the header: I may add a second row of tabs and re-test to see how users react to that.
2. Reducing the number of posts per page: given that the posts in the middle are generally overlooked, while the ones on top and bottom get clicked, I will reduce my current 13 posts per page to something that might reduce or eliminate the middle altogether.
3. Freeware Top 20: I’ve decided to stop procrastinating and update the “Freeware Top 20″ already (hopefully by next week). I always knew this was a popular page that needed to be updated, but seeing all the clicks in the confetti map put it in better persepctive relative to everything else on the page.
4. Category navigation: the fact that categories are so seldom clicked on support an idea that I’d been wanting to implement for a long time, which is to reduce the categorization scheme to 8 or so basic categories with no subcategories.
5. Blogroll/links: I will be updating my link exchange policy pretty soon (unless your site is highly trafficked or has a high Google rank, I will not accept link exchanges. However I will give a link in exchange for contributing content to this site, but I haven’t figured out the details yet).
6. Tag cloud: seems to be completely useless. Am considering either removing the tag cloud and not bothering with tags, or creating a limited set of tags that may reduce the tag clutter. Do tags have any SEO value? If you know please share in the comments.
7. Lists in the footer: I will consider removing the “Recent posts”, and “Most commented” lists and replace them with something that may be more interesting to the readers, such as an “about this blog” section with my picture in it, and/or a poll or something of the sorts.

A full fledged image viewer for under 8 megs? Yes indeed. It also provides the usual minimum set of image viewing features such as flipping, rotating, zooming in and out, and saving the image as desktop wallpaper.

A couple of quirky things about this one (which I actually like); the first thing is that images are displayed with your desktop and icons as background, rather than a black screen. The second thing is that you can drag images around the screen as you would any normal window. Not useful for any practical purpose I can think of, but somewhat pleasant nonetheless. More notes:

• All functions can be performed by right-clicking the image or through keyboard shorcuts.
• You can scroll with the mouse to view images that are too big to fit on screen, such as panoramic images (unless you choose fit to window, inwhich case the images will be forced to fit).
• Provides a good range of image resizing algorithms to choose from, if that matters to you.

The verdict: do you want a lightweight image viewer that consumes very low resources yet manages to be somewhat cool? You found it! The only thing I might imagine some people might prefer is the option to blacken the background when displaying images rather than display it as hovering over the desktop.

Version tested: 1.02

Compatibility: Windows XP or higher.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 234K).

Honestly I feel like I’ve said all that’s to be said about this app in the introductory paragraph above. My advice to you is to download it and see if you like it. But for now, as an added bonus, let’s do a bit of a Q&A:

Q: Why would I want to use this? What’s the value-added?
A: The idea is to allow moving windows without having to grab the title bar, and to resize them without having to grab the edges. It’s just a nice way to work with open windows, makes moving them around and sizing them much more versatile once you get used to it. The snap to edge functionality is also a very nice addition.

Q: is this just for XP?
A: No, its for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Q: So how does this work, exactly?
A: Press Alt then left-click anywhere on your window to move it. To resize, press Alt then right click and move your mouse horizontally or vertically. Snapping to the screen’s edge involves moving the window such that it’s edge is off-screen, and following it up with a quick right-click. Note that multiple monitors are not supported.

Q: How much memory does it consume?
A: Approximately six megs, which is quite reasonable.

Q: Any last words? What’s your verdict?
A: Overall a nice app. If you’re a bit of a geek like me you’ll definitely like this extra functionality.

Version tested: 1.0.47.5

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Seven.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 218K).

NOTE: if you have trouble downloading make sure you are not using a download manager. If that doesn’t solve the problem in IE you might need to download in Firefox or another browser.

Numpty Physics is a free, multiplatform physics game where the user has to draw objects that interact with the game environment in order to solve puzzles.

This game is very similar to Crayon Physics, which was previously mentioned on this blog. It consists of a number of hand-drawn levels where the objective is always the same: to get a ball to move to a goal area marked by a star.

The way to do this is to create other objects that interact with the ball and with and the game environment; you could, for example, draw a circular “rock” high up near the upper edge of the screen such that it will pick up velocity on its way down and create a more forceful impact than if you had placed it on a lower altitude. You could also add, say, a triangular ramp underneath to divert it to the direction where you want it to go. Moreover, you will on occasion find circles in the environment that you could attach strings to in order to “swing” an object on the other side, etc.

Here are more notes on this game:

• How to play: draw objects with the mouse. You can “freeze” all objects using space or enter to pause the game while you complete all the drawing that you want to do, and then unpause/activate everything at once when you’re done. Press Esc to delete the last drawn object. Strangely, it doesn’t seem possibly to erase drawings made two steps ago without also erasing the one (or more) steps made since.
• Other controls: Press “R” to reset. “E” will allow you to edit levels, while “N” and “P” will scroll through the available levels. Go to this page for more controls.
• Levels: once you finish a level, a small window will appear that will give the option to play the next level or scroll through the other available levels. There is no “save” option, as anyway all levels are always accessible.
• New levels: you can edit/save and share levels, or go here to download more user-created levels.
• More than one way to skin a cat: what I like about this sort of game is that there are many ways to complete a level. If the obvious route isn’t quite working it is very possible to do something completely different.

The verdict: I must admit I love physics games (check out this one, for example), and I love the no frills, bare-bones simplicity of this sort of casual game. I would have liked the option to “erase” drawings or parts of drawings that I made without having to undo entire interventions though. Nonetheless a very nice game overall.

Version tested: 0.2

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris, Windows Mobile, and others.

Go to the Numptyphysics Windows port page to download the latest version (approx 784K). For other OS’s go to the Numpty Physics home page.

There are many excellent freeware programs that can mount disk images into virtual drives. What is interesting about this one, however, is that it is completely integrated into Windows explorer, such that mounting an image file becomes a simple matter of double clicking on the disk image file (as you would any other file), and - voila! it is mounted.

If you don’t know what mounting a disk image means, here’s a quick description: a disk image file (of which .ISO files are the most common) is a CD or DVD saved locally on the hard drive as a single file, and which can be burned to a CD or DVD with a program like Imgburn. “Mounting” this file to a virtual drive means that your system will behave as if a real, physical CD or DVD was inserted into a real drive. Virtual drives are much faster than physical drives.

More notes below:

• Image formats supported: I’m quoting the website; “supports ISO, CUE, BIN/RAW/IMG file formats as well as SMB network shares and includes a workaround for Windows cache bug“
• Number of drives supported: unlimited.
• Supports network shares.

The verdict: there are many freeware disk image mounting options but I like the fact that this one is invisibly integrated into Windows explorer and that it supports such a wide range of image formats. I reviewed MagicDisc previously which has the added option of creating image files from CDs/DVD, but if you do not want that functionality (or if you already have it via your CD/DVD burning program), the WinCDEmu may be a more attractive option.

Version tested: 2.2

Compatibility: Windows XP and Vista, 32 and 64 bit.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 783K).

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].

You setup your accounts inside of Postbox just like you would Thunderbird, except Postbox has a number of preset accounts to make it even easier for you to connect to popular mail clients like Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail. Postbox can import settings and configurations from other clients just like Thunderbird and including Thunderbird. Migrating my settings and local folders to Postbox from TB was very simple and very quick.

One thing Postbox brings with it is the To-Do list. You can just create a new entry for the To-Do list and it will put it at the top of your e-mail stack. Just put in a Subject and body and it will get added to the task list. If you look at your e-mail in another client, these to-do list entries simply look like standard e-mails. This is a fast replacement for those of us who e-mail ourselves notes and reminders.

Thunderbird has the next feature already, but Postbox really brings it to the forefront. This makes it more useful, more visible, and really more likely to be used. You can assign Topics to e-mails and you can create your own topics along with the default ones like Important, Work, and Personal. This tagging helps keep things organized and also aligns things with the To-Do list mentality of many e-mail clients.

Postbox uses tabs near the top of the client window to show different categories and inboxes. One very cool use of the tabs is the way Postbox can make the content of your e-mail available to you in different ways. For an example, look at the screenshot below. There are multiple tabs for images, attachments, and links, as well as two tabs for different folders. Under the images tab, all the images in your e-mails for the account selected will be displayed. (This would be more impressive if I had more than one image…) The same is true for the attachments and links tabs; all attachments will be listed plainly under its own tab, and all links from your e-mails will be listed with a little bit of accompanying context under the Links tab. This can be very helpful in getting to the meat of your e-mails and looking through archived (historically sorted) messages.

The compose window for Postbox really has a lot to be exploited for the e-mail power user as well. The compose window brings with it a small version of the attachments, links, and images tabs seen above, as well as a few other cool features. Integrated into the sidebar for the Postbox compose window includes: Google Maps, Yelp search, Thesaurus, and an easy signature selection.

Postbox also has a great search feature, the ability to archive messages at the press of a button (puts a message in a folder under your inbox called Archive), conversation views, contact panes, and quick links to help you find related messages to the one you’re looking at in the Reading pane.

Postbox is based off of Mozilla’s code and has a lot of the great features you’re already used to with Thunderbird. With similar accounts setup, Postbox had a little bit bigger footprint (40MB) compared to Thunderbird (27MB) as a running process. Your mileage may differ depending on your accounts, messages, and e-mail habits. The beta has been perfectly stable in my experience. Check it out now and provide some feedback to the developers to create the ultimate e-mail client.

Version tested: 1.0 beta12

Compatibility: Windows XP or Vista. Mac OS X (Tiger 10.4 and Leopard 10.5)

Go to the Postbox homepage for more info and to download the latestoar version (approx 7.73 megs).

How do you convert JPG images into PDF? Typically I would recommend using a virtual PDF printer, which not only can convert images to PDF but any other (printable) file type as well. (Examples of good, freeware virtual PDF printers are: PDFCreator and PrimoPDF.

However, if you just want a quick and easy way to only convert JPG images to PDF, do not particularly care to install a virtual printer, and/or would like to be able to launch this functionality portably from a flash drive (or all of the above), then you should check this out this software. Here are more notes:

• Performance: very fast. Processed 147 JPEG’s (36 megs) into a single PDF file in 5 seconds.
• Output settings: you can specify page size and margins, shrink oversized images, or match image size+margins of the original. Very convenient.
• Formats: "supports the original JPEG/JFIF format, as well as JPEG2000 (.J2K and .JP2) files" - to quote the program website.
• Drag and drop: select the JPG files in Windows Explorer and drag them to the program interface.
• Sorting the images/pages: the best way to make sure that the image files are properly ordered/sorted is to sort them Windows explorer (in the original window), as sorting a very large number of files in in JPEG to PDF isn’t very convenient. To move an image file up or down in the list, right click and select "move up" or "move down". Use Shift+click and CTRL+click to select multiple images within the interface.

Wish list

• Better sorting options: specifically "move to top" and "move to bottom". Auto sort ascending/descending would also be nice, as would sorting by buttons on the interface rather than the context menu.

The verdict: a great little portable tool, especially if you do not want or are unable to install a virtual PDF printer.

I saw a similar freeware app a few months ago that I was testing for a possible review, except I noticed it worked fine for a handful of images but broke down when I loaded about 150. No such problems with JPEG to PDF; it processed the very same group of images quickly and smoothly (plus it has some nice output settings options as well).

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 40K).

Hulu desktop is a free desktop client for Windows and Mac that connects to the Hulu service and plays Hulu videos and programs within a sleek, feature-rich interface, without the need for an internet browser. It features a spectacular look-and-feel, high-definition video, and offers the ability to resume partially watched shows. It also supports standard Windows Media Center or Apple IR remote controls.

Hulu, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is a web site set up by a group of TV networks in order to publish their programming in high quality, as a means to keep their content under their control and as an alternative to video sharing sites like YouTube.

You might ask: why watch programs on the Hulu desktop client rather than in the browser? The answer simply is that Hulu desktop manages to offer a user experience that is simply excellent, and is far better than the desktop experience. Here’s a rundown of some of its features.

• Quality: unlike the web version, Hulu desktop displays high quality streaming video by default. Very nice indeed. For slow connection low-bandwidth situations you can lower the quality to “medium” or low.
• Control using IR Remote: for those who use their PC as a media center and/or like to use a physical remote control device, Hulu desktop offers full IR support support for both PC and Mac.
• Navigate: the player can display full video unencumbered by controls until you hover with the mouse. Can navigate using the keyboard, mouse, or remote (or combos). Navigation feels very sleek and professional: press Ctrl+F for fullscreen then use the keyboard arrows, mouse and mousewheel for zooming. Breadcrumb-style browsing history makes it easy to retrace your steps and find your way around.
• Ads: Hulu desktop will display some ads in the programming itself (much like watching TV), but it comes without the display ads that are featured on most websites (including the Hulu site).
• Resume shows: at the moment where you last left them. Very cool.
• Personalize: once your register an account and log in you save videos of interest in your queue, you can subscribe to certain channels or programs, rate programs, and look at your viewing history (note: you can do all of this in the website version as well).

Cons: issues that can be addressed to make this a better product

• Memory consumption: is very high at around 250 megs on my machine. It is actually less resrouce intesive to watch Hulu in Firefox3 (apprx 150); surely it should be the other way around? I am hoping that resource consumption is improved once this is out of beta.
• Bugs: this is beta software and in my testing of it had a couple of hiccups where it became strangely unresponsive, but went back to normal after a few seconds. I am assuming these will be eventually ironed out post-beta.

The verdict: a very impressive viewer that will surely become the preferred vehicle for accessing Hulu videos for all but the very casual Hulu users. If you’re an avid Hulu viewer you should check it out immediately; if you are an occasional Hulu user … you should also do the same .

Version tested: 0.9.3.1 BETA

Compatibility: Windows XP or later; Mac OSX10.4 or later. Requires Intel Pentium Core Duo 1.8GHz (Windows), at least 2.0 GB of RAM, a 2 Mbps Internet connection, and Flash 9.0.124

Go to the Hulu Desktop page to download the latestr version (approx 866K).

Volvo The Game is a free 3D driving simulator featuring the Volvo S60 Concept car. It also features virtual recreations of two racetracks, the “Eco Drive Arena” in Gothenburg, Sweden, and the Chayka race track in Kiew, Ukraine. Game modes include competing against computer controlled opponents as well as best lap-times against yourself or against players from around the world through internet multiplayer.

There’s been a surge in free video-game simulators for fancy car models. In the last year or so I tested two game tie-ins from BMW and Mercedes. What all of these games seem to have in common is top-notch, impressive graphics. Yet the reason I did not post any of these before on Freewaregenius was that they simply were super-difficult to play, and it seemed like the developers were too focused on impressive production qualities that they didn’t really think to craft the playability.

Therefore you might wonder whether “Volvo The Game”, which as you can see from the screenshots is obviously a beautiful game, has got good playability or whether it also is super hard. The answer is: both. That is, “Volvo The Game” is not an easy game to master and has a definitive learning curve; however, you do get the sense that it is “fair”, and that mastering it is possible and is just around the corner, so to speak. Here are more notes on this one:

• Controls: simple keyboard arrow controls, with options for joystick and even external steering wheel controls.
• Multiplayer over internet: you have to register for a free account using a valid email for this.
• Prodcution qualities: the graphics are super-cool, and the physics are very well crafted. There is a lot of attention to detail: for example, crashing into the side of the track will produce visible bursts of dust and smoke. Little things that make a huge difference. The audi is also very well done.
• Vantage point: press “Tab” to switch camera views.
• Replays: if you’ve had a particularly good race there’s nothing like going back and watching yourself burn rubber. You can play at being a video producer and have a lot of control over the type and placement of the camera throughout. (And no, so far I’ve not had a performance that was particularly worthy of re-viewing myself).’

The verdict: this game is very well put together. It is rather hard at tough to master but generally quite playable

Compatibility: WinAll. Requires a graphics card supporting OpenGL. Enable Asian language support in Windows for a better experience.

Go to the Volvocars site to download the latest version. Skip the intro then click on the box to the right (see image to the right). Download file is approx 588 megs.

Twingly, if you hadn’t hear of it, is a blog search engine similar to Technorati with some underlying technology to eliminate spammy or fake blogs. The Twingly screensaver is a screensaver that visually displays blog postings as they are being published all over the world, twisting and turning a representation of the globe to give you glimpses of the geographic location where the postings are coming from. More notes on this one:

• Browse blog posts: can function as a rather unusual browser for new blog entries (if gazing into a continuous ticker/scrolling list of blog postings can be characterized as ’browsing’, that is).
• ’I’ is for vendetta: no of course its not - silly… it’s for “interactive”; which means you can press “I” on your keyboard then swivel the globe around with your mouse or keyboard hotkeys and/or zoom in and out without shutting down the screensaver. Very cool.
• Clicking a blog entry: will produce a small “summary” window on the right hand side, so you can read it without exiting the screensaver. You can click on the summary to open inside a browser though.

The verdict: I don’t have too many screensaver reviews (I just made a quick check and found only one, MappedUp, which in fact turns out to be eerily similar to this one). My feeling is that if you have to have a screensaver it’d better do something interesting and I think this one is pretty darn cool!

The only negative with this one is that looking at it makes me feel a little embarrassed that I have trouble meeting my self-determined quota of four new postings per week on Freewaregenius (what with all the content being generated every second) .

Compatibility: WinAll. Requires a graphics card supporting OpenGL. Enable Asian language support in Windows for a better experience.

Go to the Twingly Screensaver page to download the latest version (approx 2.09 megs).

Every once in a while I get emails asking me about the "Lightbox" style image viewing I have on this site from people who want to implement something similar on theirs (for the record I use a Wordpress plugin called Shutter Reloaded for this). Generally speaking it is a fairly nice effect, and so the question becomes: wouldn’t it be terrific if there were a Firefox plugin that delivers this function to any image site(s) that you may be browsing? Greased Lightbox is that plugin. Some notes on this as follows:

• How to use: install then browse over to an image site such as Flickr or perform a Google image search. Click on an image then browse the images with the arrow keys. Press "+" to zoom in, "-" to zoom out, "0" for full size, and "x","Esc", or mouse-click on the image to exit.
• Requires the Greasemonkey extension (see "compatibility below").

The verdict: a very nice effect indeed. Not as fancy and ambitious as, say, something like CoolIris (formerly PicLens) and it’s 3D wall of images, but depending on what you like this may be a good thing.

Version Tested: 0.18

Compatibility: works with Firefox with Greasemonkey extension or Safari with GreaseKit or Opera 8+

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 72K).