WinMend Folder Hide is an easy and simple way to hide folders in Windows, unfortunately it does not work with single files, these will have to be kept inside a folder to be hidden. After installing and launching the program you will be asked to enter a password to protect it from unauthorised use, every time you launch WinMend Folder Hide you will be asked for this password, it is necessary to make sure that nobody else can use the program to unhide the folders which is done using the interface with no other protection than a checkbox.

There is a nice tabbed multilingual interface, colours can be changed with a single click, there is no manual to read, it can not get any easier than this. The software is suitable to protect your data if you are sharing a computer and want to stop children from seeing or messing with what you store in your folders, this is not a high security tool, a knowledgeable IT person should be able to uncover your data in under a minute with something as simple as a Linux live CD.

WinMend Folder Hidden

If you would like to hide a Windows folder manually instead you can go to properties (right-click), Attributes section, check the hidden box and click on apply. To view the folder you would then have to tweak your Windows operating system by going to Windows>Start, typing: “Folder options”  selecting it and applying “Show hidden files and folders“, a program like WinMend Folder Hide makes your life easier.

Visit WinMend Folder Hide

PhotoFiltre Studio X is a powerful graphics editor with dozens of special effects, it’s cluttered interface make it quick and easy to use without the need to dig deep into the menu to find tweaking components. Standard features like layer management, cloning, brush, smudge, spray tool, eraser and magic wand are all included, the program can also be used for basic drawing.

The variety of filters included make it quick and easy to turn any photograph into a work of art with a single click, the artistic filters include Pointillizing, Watercolour, Rough pastels, coloured pencil, charcoal, crystallize and many others. Another one click feature lets you add a frame, add an aged effect, blur or deform the image with a submenu of twirling, ripple, glass, lake reflection, etc. You can add external plugins to use more filters and capabilities.

Graphics editor PhotoFiltre Studio

Images can be saved as .jpeg, .gif, .png, .tiff and PhotoFiltre’s own file extension .pfi, but not PhotoShop .psd, however you can open .psd files and most of the digital cameras proprietary formats like Fuji raw, .raw, Minolta raw, .nef, Sony raw, .x3f and a couple of dozen different extensions, image processing doesn’t need too many computer resources, this software will not slow down your computer, it is very lean.

PhotoFiltre Studio can be used to batch process images, applying filters or resizing dozens of images at once, this complete photo editor might not as powerful ad PhotoShop but it has all the painting tools the average home user needs at a very reasonable price, I have used PhotoShop and it is far too complicated for total newbies, if you don’t know much about graphic editors I would give PhotoFilter Studio a try first.

Note: This program is only free for 30 days, after which you are meant to buy or uninstall it.

Visit PhotoFiltre homepage

Eyes on the Solar System is a NASA space tour full of real data, from the comfort of your home you can hop on an asteroid, fly with the Voyager 2 spacecraft or see the entire solar system moving in real time, the user gets to control space and time making it interactive and realistic.

Everything works inside the browser after installing the Unity 3D webplayer, a very small 500Kb plugin for MAC and PC often used by online games to help build a 3D world.

NASA Eyes on the Solar System

Space exploration is shown from your point of view, you can follow recently launched space missions in real time like the Juno and GRAIL missions, during the space exploration data like mission phase, distance from Earth and targets is displayed on the screen. It is possible to go back in time as far as 1950, future projected space data goes up to 2050.  Tabs along the bottom let you pick your destination, time, speed and visually control your experience, to rotate your view just click and drag or zoom in and out. There is an introduction video quickly explaining how the controls work, or you can download more advanced tutorial videos.

It’s best to experience this solar system tour full screen, you will need broadband for a good experience and even then it could take a some seconds of wait for data to download. I really enjoyed this educative tool and it is a great way to learn about science in a personal way, where you get to choose what planet you want to go to, what to see and at what speed.

Visit NASA Eyes on the Solar System

The tools below all claim to be different from Twitter in one way or another, it is worthwhile to research them before deciding to start a microblog.

Subjot: It has the ability to curate content from users you follow and the ability to comment on other people jots, making engagement easier. There is a 250 message character limit.

Identi.ca:  Stream oriented social network running on open source (StatusNet) with 140 characters message limit, you can send private messages and create private groups, with group members needing administrator approval.

Beenup2: Specialist microblogging tool for photos, you can post pictures directly using mobile phone and after sharing it with the world, family or friends, people can make comments on the images.

Microblogging

Plurk: Service to showcase what you do in your life with a 140 characters limit, you can share links to videos and images with Plurk automatically creating a thumbnail view, a widget can be embedded into your blog.

Dailybooth: A photo only twitter like messaging tool, you can start a real time conversation with others using pictures with a link or phrase below, there is no need to sign up and photos can be added using your webcam or uploading them from your computer.

FreeSocial: Launched by the Swedish Pirate Party, you can use this tool (StatusNet) to post short notices about yourself, events, polls or questions. Private groups can be created with messages being sent to only members of the group, the site is secured against eavesdroppers using SSL encryption.

Businesses will want to look into a tool focused in production that makes it easy to work in a team and has strong security, like for example Co-op or Worksimple, Chinese users will want to use a Twitter clone that is not censored and blocked by the Chinese Government, like for example Weibo(微博), and the most adventurous might want to host their own microblogging service using open source software, like StatusNet or Sharetronix, but be aware that spam can be a problem and it needs maintenance.

Artweaver is a powerful photo editor with an interface that looks like Photoshop and nearly as capable. The comprehensive list of incorporated filters (Ripple, Whirl, Waves, Lens, Add noise, Filmgrain, Oilify, Oldlook, Solarize, Emboss, Textures, Blur, Rendering, etc) will allow you to create sketches and artworks from simple photos in no time. You will be able to use a variety of brushes to retouch imperfections or add depth to the photos using a classic technique called Impasto,where the user gets to specify the amount of shine, exposure, smoothing and depth through a drop down menu, layer support makes it easy to work with special effects.

Artweaver has its own file format called .Awd but it can open and save photos using Adobe Photoshop .psd format too, if you are working in collaboration with someone using different software it should not be a problem, support for pen tablets means that you can use this software in any device.

Photoshop alternative ArtWeaver

One of the best features is Artweaver Team to connect with friends over the Internet and work simultaneously on the same image, you will need to open an account first and after logging into a team session all events will be synchronized with the other people, a simple built-in chat let’s you communicate with your buddies.

If you have used Photoshop before you will feel at home with Artweaver, with the tools positioned in the same place, even shortcuts, and if you are a beginner the included help manual with screenshots will quickly put you to work, this software is suitable for both, beginners and professionals. You can upgrade to a paid for Artweaver Plus if you need to load and run Photoshop compatible filters, saving presets, EXIF metadata support, custom palettes and other high end properties.

Visit ArtWeaver homepage

JetClean is a Windows junk cleaner suite to optimize your PC and protect your privacy, its tabbed interface and one click approach make it easy and painless to clean up your computer redundant files. Once you have JetClean set up, it can be instructed to automatically remove temporary files every time you log on, at an specific time or when the computer is idle, any changes made to the computer are logged in case you want to review them later on.

This optimization tool will take care of the operating system temporary files and Internet browser improving your computer performance and reducing online tracking by regularly getting rid of browser cookies. Files listed as deleted include memory dumps, old prefetch data, thumbnail cache, Windows log files, non-existent shortcuts, clipboard and files created by applications such as Java, Foxit Reader, Flash player, Shockwave and Adobe Air.

Windows junk cleaner JeatClean

What I liked most of this software is that you can select browser cookies from safe websites, like webmail or search engines containing your preferences, and place them on a never erased list. The one click approach makes this junk cleaner one of the fastest in the market, it got rid of all my junk files in just two clicks, one to scan the computer and the other, after reviewing the listed problems found by scan, to erase the files.

You can create a portable USB version of JetClean after installing it, I failed to see too much use to that though, the paid for version of JetClean adds registry defragmentation and Internet booster, unless you play online games probably not needed, overall, this is a simple, light on resources junk cleaner good enough for those who want an easy life and have no serious privacy needs (files are not securely wiped only erased), I would feel relaxed recommending this software to someone who knows nothing about computers.

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The Windows registry is a database that stores hardware and software settings for the Windows operating system to operate, over the time the registry will grow in size containing old and invalid information,  a registry cleaner optimizes this database getting rid of invalid entries left by uninstalled programs. Advanced registry cleaners can also defrag it compacting the entries, this makes the system more organized and speeds up accessibility.

Registry Life is a free Windows registry cleaner capable of fixing errors, defragmenting the registry and compacting it, it will remove invalid entries, check file associations, dynamic link libraries and registered applications key entries.

Free Windows Registry cleaner Registry Life

Registry Life guides you through the process of cleaning with a two step wizard, it will automatically create a backup of deleted keys for later restoration in case something goes wrong, the frequency of use depends on how often the computer is operated, I am the average user and I run a registry cleaner once a month.

Registry Life main features

• Searching and fixing for more than 10 different registry errors

• Compacting the Windows registry loading it faster into memory

• Registry defragmentation increasing operating system registry access

Read everything carefully during installation as it will ask you if you want to install trial versions of different tools made by the same developer, it managed to install one unwanted program in my computer because I did not uncheck the box, it is not spyware and can be easily be removed.

Visit Registry Life homepage

O&O SpeedCheck simulates data reading by your Windows system in a fragmented and defragmented hard drive, no real data is ever written to the drive. After the test, which last some minutes, you will be shown a comparison bar chart of the two test times, I would not call this software a benchmark because it doesn’t give you too many details other than the possible increase in speed by using a properly defragmented drive.

O&O SpeedCheck hard drive test

You do not need to install O&O Speedcheck to run it, only administrator rights. This program is a bit confusing as it might give the impression that you need to defrag your hard drive when everything is fine, O&O SpeedCheck does not measure hard drive defragmentation level, it only shows people the speed increase they can get by defragging their hard drive and the reason why a hard drive should be defragmented often, the main point of this software is to convince people to defrag their drives and show the theoretical speed one can get from that specific drive, which not only depends on disk defragmentation, but also on system hardware.

O&O offers you a 30 day trial of their defragmentation software once you close O&O SpeedCheck, it appears to be a tool to push O&O own defrag software, which can be easily ignored and would be fine as long as their freeware provided detailed data other than a simple percentage number. The only use I see for this tool is for presentations at IT lectures, if you are a home user I would give it a pass unless you still need to be convinced that defragging a hard drive really makes a difference.

Visit O&O SpeedCheck homepage

AkelPad: Open source editor for plain text, designed to be small and fast, supports multi window mode, Unicode text, preview of files before printing, drag and drop, syntax highlight (via plugin), user created colour schemes and much more.

Akelpad free Notepad replacement

TED Notepad: Highly configurable Notepad editor with autosave, Ted Notepad is targeted at advanced users with most of its functions having a hotkey, appearance (font&background colour) can easily be changed in settings. Text formatting, HTML support, search&replace, full screen, etc.

Free lightweight text editor TEDNotepad

Notepad2: Light weight (560Kb) Notepad like text editor with syntax highlighting, it can be run in portable mode without installation and it will not leave any trace in the Windows registry. Supported syntax includes  HTML, XML, CSS, VBScript, CGI, SQL query, this editor is ideal for web authoring.

Windows Notepad replacement Notepad2

MetaPad: Portable multilingual editor (GPL licensed) that will save the settings on the USB thumbdrive not leaving any data behind. It has persistent window placement, find and replace text, Unix text file support, recent file list, hyperlink support and dual font.

Metapad text editor

EditPad Lite: General purpose text editor to edit any kind of text file, it has a tabbed interface to work with many files at once, automatic back up to prevent data loss, search and replace feature, undo/redo editing,  full Unicode support and it works with Windows and Unix text strings.

EditPad Lite text editor

Notepad ++: Open source Windows Notepad replacement editor based on Scintilla, a powerful programmers editor, Notepad ++ has a numerous community and is actively in development, features can be extended via plugins, expect a spell checker, FTP client, and macros.

Developer text editor Notepad ++

PSPad: Free editor for developers, it can be used as a web authoring tool to create webpages or IDE compiler for programmers, macros can be used to automate repetitive tasks, it comes with an HEX editor, FTP client and Macro recorder, this editor is best suited for people into web development (programmers).

PSPad free editor

Vim Editor: Very geeky cross platform (Linux, BSD, Windows) text editor widely used by developers. Multiple clipboards, macros support, powerful configurable search capabilities, built-in scripting engines to automate tasks, sophisticated keyboard short-cuts and portable.

Vim editor

As you use your operating system files will get scattered all over the hard disk in no time, this process is known as defragmentation and it slows down the operating system as it has to gather together the files you want to access.

iObit SmartDefrag is a powerful configurable alternative to Windows built-in defragmenter, it will analyze your hard disk level of defragmentation before the scan, showing a coloured block map of your hard drive with the files location. SmartDefrag will work in the background placing the most used files into the fastest area of the drive, this is known as streamlining the file system.

iObit SmartDefrag Windows defrag alternative

An easy to use skinnable tabbed interface with transparency lets you switch in between the different options, there are four tabs, one shows you the drive file map, another shows automatic defragmentation resource usage, another shows Boot Time Defrag options, like defragmentation of the hibernation and page file, another tab shows a detailed report of  the number of fragmented files and where they can be found.

An always on option guarantees you that SmartDefrag will work silently in the background, the default options (can be changed) activate disk defragmentation when the computer has been idle for 5 minutes and pauses it if the computer is using over 60% of its resources, this stops SmartDefrag from affecting disk performance while you are using it , alternatively defragmentation can be scheduled or run on demand and if you want to stop certain file from being defragmented, it can be manually excluded or use a checkbox in SmartDefrag to stop it from moving files bigger than a certain fixed size.

While there are many free defrag utilities, iObit SmartDefrag has been specially designed for modern large hard drives giving you maximum speed, and it is one of the few that can be instructed to defrag at boot time, allowing for the defragmentation of Windows system files that can not be moved while the operating system is in use.

Note: There is no need to defragment solid state disks or memory sticks.

Visit iObit SmartDefrag homepage