StreamTransport is a free video downloading software that can download media from video sharing sites such as YouTube as well as encrypted media (video or music) from sites such as Hulu. It can browse and download media from sites using HTTP, RTMP, RTMPT, RTMPE, and RTMPTE protocols, which covers most video and media sharing sites.

While there has been a general proliferation of video downloading apps and “YouTube downloaders”, only a handful of these are actually able to download encrypted media (video or music) from anti-leeching” websites that use encryption such as Imeen, Pandora and Last.fm. Two that can that were mentioned previously at Freewaregenius are TubeMaster++ and Orbit Downloader, but even these are unable to download from Hulu. I have tested StreamTransport and can confirm that it can download from Hulu as well as other encrypted sites.

I have been keeping an eye out for a video downloading service that can download from Hulu for a while. The best contender I had come across was the command line, open source app “Get_Iplayer“, which supported Hulu downloads for a while until that support was dropped. Other Hulu downloading apps were typically quite restricted in their free version, and/or would stop working as the Hulu encryption kept changing.

While StreamTransport can download videos from Hulu, it is quite possible that the Hulu encryption might be tweaked or changed at some point and would require StreamTransport to be updated to keep pace, but at least at the time of this writing it is working.

More note on this program below:

How to use:

1. Use StreamTransport’s built-in browser to find and play your media. Simply navigate to it as you would any browser, or use the “visit Hulu” button on the top toolbar.
2. Once the video starts showing, it will appear in the list of URLs. You should be able to identify the actual video vs. the ads and other unrelated content because (a) it will have a title that makes sense that often starts with “Hulu -”, and (b) it will show a significant duration in minutes as opposed to the few seconds duration of the ads.
3. Note that you will download a single file for the entire Hulu program that you want. You will not have to worry about ad interruptions.
4. Download speed: it is normal that download speed will fluctuate greatly with Hulu videos, and that downloading will take a very long time. This is likely a function of negotiating the encryption, and you will notice that downloading from other services is much faster
5. Once a video starts downloading, you can navigate and start downloading other media. The video does not have to be playing in order to download.

Note on downloaded Hulu FLV files: while I was download and play these, fast-forwarding was not possible, which made me think that Hulu videos by design do not have keyframe objects in them. (This is probably due to the video itself, not the downloader). To fix I used a utility called FLVMDI that could inject metadata and include keyframe objects into FLV’s (this is a command line utility but there’s a GUI on the site). Sure enough after adding keyframe objects I was able to fast forward using The KMPlayer without problems.

The verdict: not only can this free app download from Hulu and other sites with encrypted media, it has a fairly nice interface as well. I only hope that when and if the Hulu encryption is tweaked that StreamTransport is updated to keep pace.

One thing to note is that while I tested this successfully with Hulu, YouTube, and Imeem, I was not able to get videos from Joost.com to play in StreamTransport’s integrated player, which suggests that while this app is a valuable tool, esp. for Hulu, it may not be a one-size-fits all media downloader.

[Thanks go to user Yashino for tipping me off about this program!]

Version Tested: 1.02

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 2.79 megs).

Have you ever wished you could have pop-up notifications of the latest stories on the websites you read, the latest Tweets of people you follow, or even the latest eBay and Craigslist postings for items that you are interested in? This is exactly what Feed Notifier can do for you.

Feed Notifier is a free, system-tray based RSS feed notifier with some advanced functionality, such as the ability to filter items based on keywords, support for RSS and Atom feeds, and support for authenticated feeds that require a user name and password. It is also generally very versatile and highly configurable.

I have come across a number of free system-tray based RSS feed notifiers, but Feed Notifier brings a sophistication and elegance that eludes most other programs. More notes as follows:

• Keyword filtering: this is really powerful. You can include or exclude based on keywords or phrases (e.g. +freeware, +”free software”, +freeware and -shareware, etc). You can also limit filtering to specific fields, which depend on the individual RSS feed (e.g. -author:”John Doe”), and you can enable or disable substring matching (which can detect the word “free” as a substring of “freeware” for example). More info on keyword filtering here.
• Browsing: want to browse a feed quickly? You can scroll through the various posts right in the system tray popup dialog using little forwards/backwards buttons, or quickly jump to the next or the previous feed. Can potentially be quite the time saver.
• Placement: display the popup dialog near the system tray, in the center of your screen, or adjacent to any of the four corners of the screen.
• Behavior: is highly customizable. For example you could Enable/Disable individual feeds without deleting them, set Feed Notifier to not update feeds if it detects that you’ve been idle for a certain amount of time (60 seconds by default), set the width of the popup, its transparency, and how long it will flash on screen, and even whether new items should auto-display when they come in, etc…
• Scheduling: is determined for each RSS feed separately. For example you might want a certain feed to be checked every 15 minutes while another to be kept to an hourly or even daily schedule, etc.
• Memory footprint: is approx 37 megs. While it seems a bit high for this sort of app it is not really surprising given the features on offer.
• Other features of note: supports authenticated feeds requiring a username and password, supports launching via feed:// protocol (from Firefox and other browsers), supports multi-threaded feed polling.
• Craigslist, eBay, and Twitter notifications: all of these offer RSS feeds, but I mention here because the author of this program has an excellent writeup on how to set up Craiglist and eBay notificiations as well as Twitter notifications.

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

• Support for images: strangely, Feed Notifier does not display any images that are included in the feed. It would be nice if there was an option to switch image support off and on.
• Viewing lists instead of individual posts: I found myself wishing I could press a button and view the list of cached posts from a particular feed, right in the popup notification dialog, instead of having to scroll through news items one by one.
• Feed-specific preferences for caching: that could override the global preferences. For example I might want to cache RSS updates for 1 day or 500 items per feed generally, but for a particular feed I might want to override this, say keeping only 50 items.
• The ability to import/export OPML files: in order to add a whole bunch of feeds at once instead of having to add them manually one by one. Perhaps not a big deal, as this sort of notifier ought to be used with a handful of high-interest feeds rather than as your main RSS feed browser.

The verdict: a terrific, well made program that looks good and provides a wealth of options. I particularly like the advanced keyword filtering functionality, which can provide a remedy for informational overload and protect against being flooded with notifications. I also like the fact that you can change the placement of the popup (say, move it to the upper right) and that popups do not steal keyboard or mouse focus from other applications when they appear.

As a system-tray based desktop RSS notifier this would probably be my app of choice. For more options for reading RSS feeds check out my previous post entitled Nine ways to check RSS feeds (including some unusual ones).

Version Tested: 2.2

Compatibility: WinAll. Mac and Linux support is on the way, it seems.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 7 megs).

Do you have a lot of icons on your desktop? Are your icons carefully placed according to some sort of personal scheme or system? Are you annoyed every so often when an event, such as a resolution change or a Windows update, completely messes up your desktop icon placements?

DesktopOK is a free app that can save and restore your desktop icon positions. What makes this one special, however, is that it can run in the background and take "snapshots" of your desktop icons at a set schedule, say every hour or so (better yet, it can be instructed to take these snapshots only if it detects a change). DesktopOK has a lightweight memory footprint, is portable, and is available for 32bit as well as natively for 64bit systems.

While there are a number of free programs that can save and restore your desktop icon positions for you, DesktopOK, as mentioned above, has the added benefit of staying in memory and periodically saving snapshots of your icon placements. What this means is that when you actually need to restore your icons to the correct placement you are likely to find an automatically saved snapshot from, say, yesterday, instead of using the manually saved icon placement from two weeks ago.

More info as follows:

• Two ways to save/restore icons: you can either add the current icon layout as an entry in the DesktopOK interface (whereby it will be saved to an .INI file in the same directory as the executable), or otherwise save straight to disk as a .BOK file.
• Auto save: as mentioned previously, can be scheduled (for example once a day, every hour, every 6 hours, or every 15 minutes). You can also choose, when performing a scheduled save, to only save icon a new icon layout if it detects a change from the previous layout.
• Optional Save/Restore on shutdown or startup.
• Memory footprint: a lightweight 3 megs
• Portable: yes indeed.
• Extra functionality: the option to tile or cascade open windows via the system tray icon. I don’t usually like random functions tacked on that are unrelated to the main function, but in this case I must admit I like it. See screenshots to the right.
• Works with virtual desktop software: specifically Dexpot, which I use and which allows icon configurations specific to each virtual desktop.

The verdict: an awesome program. Not only is it extremely low on memory use, but the scheduled icon snapshots taking place in the background is an excellent functionality that many similar apps do not offer (certainly not the couple of similar programs that I reviewed previously on Freewaregenius). A winner!

Version Tested: 1.86

Compatibility: WinAll. 32 bit and native 64 bit versions available.

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

Update: Mar 6th 2010. I finally updated this comparative analysis of free PDF to Word conversion software, re-writing it from the ground up, and in the process doubling the size of the article since the last iteration    

Can you perform good PDF to Word/Doc/RTF conversions for free? Absolutely. This posting will present and compare a number of different ways to convert PDF files into Word .DOC or .RTF formats, for free and without any watermarks or restrictions. Options discussed include both free programs and free online conversion services.    

If you’ve seen this article before you will notice that some new conversion options have been added while a few that were previously mentioned are gone. This is because since I first wrote this a number of excellent conversion options have become available, and I wanted to focus on the services that offer the highest quality. Ten different programs/services are presented here; 5 desktop-based apps and 5 online conversion services. Of the six options presented in the original article only two remain.    

Desktop-based apps: (1) Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft; (2) gDOC Creator; (5) AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Free; (4) OpenOffice with PDF import extension; and (5) Some PDF to Word Converter.    

Online Conversion services: (6) NuancePDF (7) PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF; (8) Koolwire; (9) Zamzar, and (10) PDFOnline.com.Before I move on to the comparison section, a few issues to address:    

Will the document be editable once it is converted?: typically, yes; however the real answer is it depends on your original document and how it was created. Generally speaking you will be able to edit any converted PDF that was created electronically and published using software, which comprises the overwhelming majority of forms and documents that are on the internet. The exception is if your PDF was scanned from a paper document; in this case most converters will consider this to be no different from a photograph, and when converting will produce images inside a .DOC file rather than text. What you need in this case is “Optical Character Recognition” (OCR) software, or a converter than can do OCR (the only option mentioned in this article that can do OCR is NuancePDF); otherwise what you can use free OCR software such as InstantOCR or TopOCR. These programs can “read” documents based on images and convert them to text, but in most cases it will be somewhat labor intensive to get a good conversion, especially if you have a large number of pages.    

Online vs. desktop conversions: there are two categories of tools for PDF to Word file conversions. The first is a program that you would install on your PC that would convert the PDF file for you and save the output on your hard drive, which is what you would typically expect. The second category are online conversion websites. With these, you would need to email or upload your file that you want to convert remotely to a website. The actual conversion would occur remotely on their server, and subsequently the converted document is either emailed back to you to a valid email address that you provide or a link is produced that you can click to download the resulting file.    

Typically, online conversion services offer a higher quality conversion, although depending on your document that may or may not be the case. Two issues that have to be considered with online conversions are reliability and security. With respect to the former issue (reliability), while most online services will send your converted document within a matter of minutes, it is sometimes the case that your file will arrive hours or even days afterwards. As for the latter issue (security), virtually all of the online services mentioned here promise that your files will be transferred via a secure connection, that your document will not be looked at by a human, and that your email will not be used or shared with any other party. Still, it is up to you to decide whether you are comfortable sending certain private or business documents remotely for conversion.    

Converting to images: if you are interested in converting your PDF to images then you’re in the wrong place. For this try the freeware program aptly entitled JPEG to PDF or use the excellent free PDF reader called PDF X-Change Viewer which has an export to images option.    

To perform this test I converted five documents. The first is a PDF document I created using Open Office’s export to PDF function that had the following elements (1) a two-column table with special formatting, which contained (2) three thumbnail-sized jpeg images. My PDF document also contained (3) working hyperlinks; and (4) it featured text that was bolded; (5) contained bulleted points, as well as (6) a numbered list. For the sake of simplicity my PDF was only a single page. To see what the document looked like click on the screenshot to the right.    

The second document was a simple scanned image that was converted to PDF, to test whether any of the services would perform OCR (optical character recognition) and render an editable document. (only one did). The third document was a trade brochure that contained text, images, charts, and tables, and was 21 pages long, which I imagined would be typical of what most people would need to convert. The fourth document: a single-page PDF I created of a Russian website, for the sole purpose of testing whether any of these services support special characters (none did). Lastly, the fifth document consisted of a bunch of tables full of data, to see how these programs dealt with this.    

The objective was to get a converted document that could be loaded into MS Word where the text/contents could be edited and subsequently saved as .DOC format, which is to say any of the following formats would be satisfactory: .DOC, .HTML, and .RTF.    

#1: Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft: a free, fully functional desktop-based PDF to Word program that produces excellent results. (See my full review of this program here). More info as follows:    

• Interface: very simple interface and straightforward; single-click conversions; drag and drop files in batch.
• Commercial use: allowed; the issue is not addressed on their FAQ or anywhere on their site, therefore it is safe to assume that commercial use is ok.
• Download size: a mere 3.82 megs
• OCR support: none
• Strengths: excellent general PDF to DOC conversion for a desktop app.
• Weaknesses: text is handled via floating windows, no continuous editable stream makes editing large documents cumbersome.
• The results: I give this one 8/10, if just for being a well rounded free converter. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results sections below for a detailed discussion and head-to-head comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#2: gDoc Creator: a huge 148 meg download that installs a number of things, including gDoc Creator, which is the conversion engine that you want (and which is free). Also installs virtual printers that can convert to PDF and XPS from any application, and optionally MS Office add-ons that allow you to export your documents to PDF or XPS from office apps (also free, and can be quite useful). It also installs gDoc Fusion, a trialware PDF reader with a few bells and whistles which you do not necessarily want or need. When installing, I suggest you do NOT check the boxes to allow associating of PDF and XPS extensions with this app, or integrate it with your browser as the default reader. See my full review of this program here. More info as follows:    

• Download size: a whopping 148 megs
• Commercial use: free for commercial use.
• How to use: run gDoc creator from the start menu, use the dropdown to select the conversion settings you want, then drag and drop your PDFs onto the interface.
• OCR support: none
• Bundled trialware: installs gDoc Fusion, a bundled trialware which you don’t really need. The software will by default launch this program at the conclusion of each conversion process,  which can be somewhat annoying. However, there is a preference (button next to Open…) to turn automatic viewing off.
• Strengths: excellent handling/extraction of continuous editable text if that is what you’re after, fast; drag and drop interface, virtual printers to create PDFs and XPS from any printable document.
• Weaknesses: handling of images and tables is rudimentary (lumps these elements together into a single image for each page). Huge download size. Installs virtual printers to create PDFs and XPS from any printable document (a weakness if you don’t want or need them, that is, but could also be a strength).
• The results: I give this one 8/10. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results sections below for a detailed discussion and head-to-head comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#3: AnyBizSoft PDF to Word free: this program requires a registration code that you can get for free by providing a valid email address. Note that once you enter the registration code you will be able to perform conversions without restrictions, which is somewhat unclear from the website (but which I can confirm). The only caveat is that you are NOT allowed to use the free version for commercial use.   

This program is very competent and performed an excellent job. More info as follows:   

• Interface: simple, easy, drag-and-drop. Adds a right click “convert PDF to Word” context menu entry, which can potentially be useful.
• Download size: 6.3 megs 
•  OCR support: none
• Commercial use: NOT allowed. If you are using this software for a business/commercial use you will need to purchase a license.
• Strengths: excellent handling of images, and formatting, can convert in batch.
• Weaknesses: text handling could have been better. Restricted to non-commercial use.
• The results: I give this one 8/10. This is a good general PDF to Word converted, and your converted document will look very much like the original. See the results sections below for a detailed discussion and head-to-head comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#4: OpenOffice with PDF import extension: if you use OpenOffice you can install the newly release PDF import pluging that will allow you to open PDFs directly into OpenOffice Draw (note: not Writer, which is the word processing module equivalent to MS Word). This does not amount to converting the file to DOC or RTF but allows you to edit the PDF directly, after which you can export it to PDF once more. More info as follows:    

• Download size: a mere 220K for the add-in. OpenOffice itself is about 150 megs download or so. For instructions on how to install OpenOffice extensions go here.
• OCR support: none
• Commercial use: free for commercial use.
• Strengths: instantly open and edit PDFs, good handling of images and formatting, a good option for quick, on-the-fly edits of PDF documents.
• Weaknesses: text is handled via floating windows, not a continuous editable stream (which can make editing large documents cumbersome). Takes a long time (or flatly would not load) a couple of long, complicated documents that I threw at it.
• The results: I give this one 7.5/10 overall. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results sections below for a detailed discussion and head-to-head comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.  

#5: Some PDF to Word Converter: another free desktop-based PDF to Word conversions program. Some PDF to Word offers some control over how the PDF will be processed. Results are so-so and depend on your original PDF. See my full review of this program here. More info as follows:  

• Download size: a mere 690K installer.
• OCR support: none
• Commercial use: is not broached on their site, but the program is billed as “totally free” and it is safe to assume that this includes commercial use.
• Strengths: flexible handling of text, fast.
• Weaknesses: handling of images and formatting is considerably poor . Weak rendering of overall look and feel and layout.
• The results: I give this one 5/10 in terms of results. Your converted document is unlikely to look like the original if it contains images and formatting. See the results sections below for a detailed discussion and head-to-head comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#6: Nuance PDF: the interesting thing about this online conversion service is that it is integrated into their free NuancePDF Reader (see my full review here). To upload your documents for conversion you would have to install the reader, open your document, and click on the “convert” button, whereby your PDF will be uploaded to their servers for conversion. It is also the only service that offers Optical Character Recognition (OCR), where image-based text is rendered into editable text. It is also excellent in terms of quality. More info as follows    

• Download size: despite being an online service you will need to download the free PDF reader software, approx 19 megs.
• Reliability: good. At the time of this writing it was the most responsive of all online conversion services mentioned here, sending my files back within minutes. However, I previously had to wait for my files to arrive over an entire weekend.
• OCR support: Yes, and surprisingly high quality. This is the only conversion service mentioned in this article that offers OCR.
• Commercial use: allowed. I scoured their website and read their legal notices without finding any specific mention of this issue.
• Privacy: they will not sell or share your email (from their privacy policy, which doesn’t comment on files sent for conversion). Aside from that, their terms of use link was not clickable, which is a strange omission. This is not to say that your files will not be held in confidence and disposed of properly, but that I wasn’t able to read a clear policy that expressly stated this.
• Strengths: excellent handling of images and formatting, OCR support, integration with a desktop PDF reader, good handling of text and images, secure upload connection, can convert PDF to Excel as well.
• Weaknesses: no clear terms of service statement on their site. Response variability, which afflicts most popular online services, although I will say that at the moment this service is being quite reliable. Colors can at times be slightly off in the converted document.
• The results: I give this one 9/10 overall. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results section below for more detailed discussion and comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#7: PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF: another excellent online conversion service, and definitely one of the best conversion engines mentioned in this article. Results are generally excellent; see my full review of this service here. More info as follows:    

• Reliability: variable. At the time of this writing they were scheduled to update their servers within 2 weeks or so, at which point they promise better responsiveness. In my previous use of this service I generally received my files within minutes but also remember having to wait up to 12 hours for the files to appear.
• OCR support: None.
• Commercial use: is allowed. I scoured their website and read their legal notices without finding anything to the contrary.
• Privacy: they promise to not look at your documents, not share your email, and delete your files as soon as they send you the email response.
• Strengths: excellent handling of images and formatting, as well as text. A related service can also convert PDF to Excel format.
• Weaknesses: images can at times end up behind other elements, giving the impression that they did not make it into the converted document; variability in response time, which afflicts most popular online services.
• The results: I give this one 8.5/10 overall. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results section below for more detailed discussion and comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#8: Koolwire: this is another web service that allows you to either upload your PDF or simply email it as an attachment (to doc[at]koolwire.com), whereby it will convert and send it back to you by return mail. When this article was first published Koolwire was amongst the best options, however it has since been superseded by some of the other programs and services mentioned above.    

Still, Koolwire does a great job. Here are more notes on this one.    

• How it works: you can email a file that is less than 10 megs in size. Files over 10 megs can be uploaded through the Koolwire website.
• Reliability: variable. One big negative is that it will flatly refuse to convert some complicated files (which the others incidentally had no problems with). Otherwise the files convert either within a few minutes. I previously had to wait up to 5 hours though.
• OCR support: None.
• Commercial use: allowed.
• Privacy policy: their legal blurb states that users will not receive any unsolicited emails at any point. They also maintain “the right (but not the obligation) to verify Content (i.e. view your documents) at their sole discretion”. Files (input and output) will be deleted upon being emailed and/or downloaded.
• Strengths: good handling of text, excellent handling of tables.
• Weaknesses: response variability; will fail to convert some files without explanation, handling of images and tables is rudimentary (lumps these elements together into a single image for each page).
• The results: I give this one 7.5/10 overall. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results section below for more detailed discussion and comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#9: Zamzar: this is a web-based file conversion service that I first reviewed in Feb, 2007. Zamzar will let you upload a file through its web interface, convert it, then email you a download link. It covers a very wide range of possible input and output formats. More notes as follows:    

• How it works: max uploadable file size is 100 megs in the free version. It will let you upload files in batch, which can be very useful. You will have to specify the desired output format (.DOC) in the dropdown.
• Reliability: good. I was always able to access my converted files within a matter of minutes.
• OCR support: None.
• Privacy policy: your files are deleted once the conversion happens and the converted files are deleted once the download link expires. Also, to quote “files stored for download are only accessible by Zamzar”. Another quote: “Zamzar does not rent, sell, or share your personal information or email address with any other companies.”
• Strengths: good handling of text.:
• Weaknesses: response variability, handling of images and tables is rudimentary (lumps these elements together into a single image for each page).
• Results: I give this one 7/10 overall. See the results section below for more detailed discussion and comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

#10: PDFOnline.com: an online service that converts on the spot, no email address or waiting necessary. More info below:    

• Reliability: high, since you do not need to wait for a return email and your conversions will occur more or less on the spot.
• OCR support: None.
• Commercial use: seems to be allowed, since the issue is not broached on the site.
• Privacy policy: they will not send you unsolicited email and, to quote their site , “will not monitor, edit, or disclose any personal information about you or the documents you submit for conversion, including their contents, without your prior permission”.
• Strengths: good handling of both text and images, best handling of tables. An excellent overall converter.
• Weaknesses: none that I can think of. This one was surprisingly excellent.
• The results: I give this one 9/10 overall. Your converted document will generally look like the original. See the results section below for more detailed discussion and comparison against the other software mentioned in this article.

Comparison of Results:   

Image handling: a common issue here is that many services blend all images and visual elements on the page into a single page-wide background image, as opposed to rendering distinct images and distinct formatting. This is obviously ok if you are merely interested in editing the text, but will make editing a document holistically somewhat difficult.   

1. Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft: does not create a single background image that lumps all images within it, which is a good thing. Instead it will render distinct, individual images, which can be easily moved around or manipulated. **Excellent**
2. gDOC Creator: blends all images and formatting within a page into a single background image. This makes it difficult and/or labor intensive to edit images or change image placement, but can make life simpler if you just want to edit the text.
3. AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Free: image handling seems to vary but is generally excellent; at times it will combine all images and formatting on a page into a single background image, while other times the images are extracted individually and in the correct placement. It seems to depends on the source. **Excellent**
4. OpenOffice with PDF import extension: images are rendered correctly where they should be, and are generally easy to work with. **Excellent**
5. Some PDF to Word Converter: unpredictable. Will extract individual images at times, while other times it simply will not extract any images at all. In general image placement and layout will most certainly be incorrect.
6. NuancePDF: does not create a single background image that lumps all images into it; rather, it seems to merge adjoining clusters of images together, which actually kind of works well and generally speaking is not a bad way to handle images. **Excellent**
7. PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF: image handling seems to vary but is generally excellent; at times it will combine all images and formatting on a page into a single background image, while other times the images are extracted individually and in the correct placement. It seems to depends on the source. **Excellent**
8. Koolwire: blends all images and formatting within a page into a single background image
9. Zamzar: blends all images and formatting within a page into a single background image
10. PDFOnline.com: image handling seems to vary but is generally excellent; at times it will combine all images and formatting on a page into a single background image, while other times the images are extracted individually and in the correct placement. It seems to depends on the source. **Excellent**

Handling of text and/or text boxes: this is probably the most important element, since it is probably safe to assume that the point of converting a PDF to Doc is to allow for editing the text. A number of issues here; does the text render accurately? To what extent does the converter produce a continuous editable stream? Sometimes the text is interrupted by carriage returns on every line or (worse) each line of the text is placed in its own individual text box, which may requires copying and pasting into a new consolidated text box (and makes editing quite difficult).    

1. Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft: each line of text was its own text box, filling the page with dozens of separate text boxes and potentially making the editing process labor intensive. In some complex documents case can be handled incorrectly (e.g. “PuBlishing firMs” instead of “Publishing Firms”.
2. gDOC Creator: excellent text handling; a continuous editable stream of text uninterrupted by carriage returns where they shouldn’t be. Text always rendered correctly. **Excellent**
3. AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Free: continuous text in a single text box, but with carriage returns at the end of each line, interrupting flow. Text was always rendered correctly.
4. OpenOffice with PDF import extension: each line of text was its own text box, filling the page with dozens of separate text boxes and potentially making the editing process labor intensive.
5. Some PDF to Word Converter: this one allows the user to change the settings for text extraction in order to get exactly what you want (using text boxes, auto merge, deleting line breaks). If you just want to extract the text quickly from a PDF it might be a good option.
6. NuancePDF: a continuous editable stream of text uninterrupted by carriage returns where they shouldn’t be. However, the text case sometimes did not render correctly (e.g. “IncrEasInG portalIzatIon” instead of “Increasing Portalization”).
7. PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF: a continuous editable stream of text uninterrupted by carriage returns where they shouldn’t be. However, the text case sometimes did not render correctly (e.g. “IncrEasInG portalIzatIon” instead of “Increasing Portalization”).
8. Koolwire: seems to handle text well, producing a continuous editable stream of text uninterrupted by carriage returns where they shouldn’t be. However, I couldn’t tell if it had any of the case rendering problems mentioned above because it flatly refused to convert the complicated document where they occured (without explanation).
9. Zamzar: continuous text in a single text box, but with carriage returns at the end of each line, interrupting flow. Also, the text case sometimes did not render correctly (e.g. “IncrEasInG portalIzatIon” instead of “Increasing Portalization”).
10. PDFOnline.com: a continuous editable stream of text uninterrupted by carriage returns where they shouldn’t. Moreover the text case always rendered correctly. **Excellent**

Handling of Tables: most converters simply recreate tables using a combination of text boxes and formatting elements, so you’re editing rows but not columns (i.e. you cannot right-click ’delete column’ or something like in Word that because there are no columns).    

If your document is table-intensive or if tables are your primary focus you would be better off with something that converts to Excel rather than to Word. Check out PDF to Excel Free, an online PDF to Excel service from the makers of PDF to Word Free, or try using”Excel” as the output format in NuancePDF.    

1. Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft: no actual tables produced, but did an excellent job of “recreating” tables using text boxes, including the formatting. But no actual tables produced.
2. gDOC Creator: recreated tables using text boxe and formatting, with an end result that looked quite acceptable.
3. AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Free: recreated tables using text boxes and formatting, but the two elements were not quite in sync and the end result looked somewhat messy.
4. OpenOffice with PDF import extension: no tables, of course, since the editing takes place in the drawing program (OpenOffice Draw).
5. Some PDF to Word Converter: created a complete and total mess. Neither the content no’r the look of the table was preserved.
6. NuancePDF: recreated tables using text boxes and formatting, with an end result that looked quite acceptable.
7. PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF: recreated tables using text boxes and formatting, with an end result that looked quite acceptable.
8. Koolwire: was able to recreate actual tables, as well as recreate the formatting. Very impressive. **Excellent**
9. Zamzar: recreated tables using text boxes and formatting, but the two elements were not quite in sync and the end result looked somewhat messy.
10. PDFOnline.com: was able to recreate actual tables, as well as recreate the formatting. Very impressive. **Excellent**

Working Hyperlinks: i.e. whether clickable links in the PDF were also clickable in the resulting Word document.    

1. Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft: no
2. gDOC Creator: yes
3. AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Free: yes
4. OpenOffice with PDF import extension: no (documents re-exported to PDF did not maintain working hyperlinks)
5. Some PDF to Word Converter: no
6. NuancePDF: no
7. PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF: yes
8. Koolwire: yes
9. Zamzar: yes
10. PDFOnline.com: yes

Optical Character Recognition (OCR): i.e. whether the converter is able to “read” PDF documents based on images and output an editable text.    

• NuancePDF: is the only converter that is able to do this. Check out the image on the right for an illustration.

Handling of special characters: I tested this by attempting to convert a single-page PDF created from a Russian website.    

• Not a single conversion option successfully dealt with this, I’m afraid.

The verdict/recommendation section: including overall score and summary.    

1. Free PDF to Word Converter from SmartSoft: 8/10. If you want a well-rounded desktop-based converter that you could also use commercially this is the one for you.
2. gDOC Creator: 8/10. gDOC Creator’s handling of text is among the best discussed in this article. If your primary concern is editing the text of PDF documents (and you want to use a desktop app rather than a web service) then this is the one I would recommend.
3. AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Free: 8/10. A good desktop converter, but cannot be used for commercial projects (which takes off a point in my scoring system)
4. OpenOffice with PDF import extension: 7.5/10. This one is recommended for quick, on the fly edits. If you use OpenOffice then installing the PDF Import plugin is a must. If you are planning to do extensive editing of large documents, however, you would be better served by some of the other options presented here.
5. Some PDF to Word Converter: 5/10. Use only to extract text from PDFs quickly.
6. NuancePDF: 9/10. Excellent quality conversions, as well as support for OCR. This is your destination of choice if your conversions with other software/services simply renders DOC or RTF files with images inside and no editable text.
7. PDF to Word Free from NitroPDF: 8/10. excellent quality conversions, but hampered by variable reliability. This may change, however, once their promised server upgrade is implemented.
8. Koolwire: 7.5. ok conversions, but not as advanced as some of the other online conversion options.
9. Zamzar: 7/10. ok conversions, but no reason to use this one given that other online services are better.
10. PDFOnline.com: 9/10. This was completely unexpecited. It provides the best quality PDF to Word conversion; will produce a download link instantly and will not keep you waiting. Highly reommended.

Lastly, if you learn of new free PDF to DOC conversion software or service that was not covered here please let me know in the comments section!

Nuance PDF Reader is a free PDF document reader and alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader. It offers a number of nice features, such as the ability to fill PDF forms and save them to your hard drive, the ability to open and save PDFs straight into Sharepoint, and the option to upload your PDFs to an online conversion engine and convert them to other formats (including MS Word .DOC formats), straight from the Nuance PDF Reader interface.

Aside from these, Nuance provides many of the features and functions you would expect to see in a program like this but some that you don’t. A few notable features are the ability to highlight, strike-out, and underline parts of your document (and save these edits), the ability to browse your document via sidebar page thumbnails, support for bookmarks, support for embedded flash objects and the option to rotate your view and superimpose a grid and/or ruler views onto your page. Nuance PDF Reader also integrates well with internet browsers for display of online PDF documents.

There are a handful of standard questions that I ask whenever I look into a PDF Reader. But before I do, a quick overview of some innovative features that Nuance offers:

• Online document conversions: you can convert your PDFs to other formats, such as Word .DOC , RTF, and Excel. Nuance does this by automatically uploading your document to the Nuance PDF online service, which it reportedly does via a secure connection, then performing the file conversion remotely and emailing the result back to you (a desktop based converter is available but is not free; hence the roundabout process). I can confirm that the output is of extremely high quality (I did PDF to .DOC, .RTF, and .DOCX); however, whether this is going to be a service you could rely on is another question, as it seemed to be down over the weekend and then – boom – I got all my 5 or so documents all at once. The service even purportedly supported OCR, which I did not test, but in any case I will soon add Nuance PDF to Word conversions in my coming update of the PDF to Word comparison posting, and there will be more information there.
• Sharepoint support: this is a brilliant feature which I’ve never seen before. If your workplace uses Sharepoint (a document sharing and collaboration tool) this might be an invaluable function whereby you can access documents straight from the PDF Reader without use of a browser; most private users however would have little use for this.

But now to backtrack a little bit; here are my 4 standard questions that I ask whenever I test a PDF reader.:

1. Does it allow for filling out forms and saving filled forms to disk?: YES. It can also highlight, reset, and autocomplete forms based on previously entered info.
2. Does it integrate well with browsers for viewing online PDF documents?: YES.
3. Does the reader offer good document rendering quality? YES. This I test by loading my home appraisal report from last year, a complicated document which has microscopic tables within tables (no doubt designed to impress on the reader that these guys know what they are talking about). I found, to my surprise, that some PDF readers handle this document quite poorly; not so with Nuance which gave crisp, high quality rendering.
4. Whether the reader allows for good viewing options, such as fullscreen, continuous, and rotated views. YES.

The verdict: this is an awesome PDF reader that with some nice innovations. I like the way it looks and behaves, and it has a lot of depth to it in terms of being an extremely well rounded player and in terms of the supported technologies (e.g. embedded objects, portfolios, Sharepoint). I especially like the idea of integrating a one-click PDF to Word conversion into the reader, even if it is an online conversion.

I would definitely recommend Nuance as your PDF reader of choice. It compares favorably against PDF X-Change Viewer, which is the other PDF reader that I like. Although the latter has some features that Nuance does not (such as Typewriter mode for quick editing, embedded sticky notes, and export pages to images) Nuance is the more innovative of the two and, unlike PDF X-Change Viewer, does not taunt you with greyed out options in the menu that are reserved for the paid version. Overall an excellent free PDF reader and highly recommended.

Version Tested: 6.0

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 19 megs). You will have to register with a valid email address and the download link emailed to you.

Have you ever wished you could control iTunes via system-wide hotkeys? Free iTunes add-on HKTunes lets you do exactly that. HKTunes runs in the background and will let you perform the standard player controls such as previous/next, pause/play and volume.

You can also use HKTunes to use the media-player keys on your keyboard, if you have them, to control iTunes, as many of these are designed for Windows Media Player and will not necessarily work with iTunes from the get-go.

Now that I have my iPhone it seems that I am also committed to using iTunes for the foreseeable future. One thing that I found to be strangely missing are global keyboard shortcuts to perform simple pause/play and next/back operations without bringing iTunes into focus (iTunes’ own native keyboard shortcuts only work when it is maximized and in focus). HKTunes is the small simple app that I found that lets me do this.

HKTunes has a tiny footprint in memory, taking up less than 4 megs. Which is terrific because iTunes add-ins, in my experience, always tend to use up more memory than they should (or maybe this has to do with the iTunes scripting engine itself?). Not so here.

The verdict: the only thing I would have liked is the option to hide HKTunes from the system tray altogether. Other than that it works great and does exactly what it sets out to do, and I love that it’s lightweight.

Now the next time someone talks to me at work while I am listening to my headphones, or a song comes up that I do not care to listen to I can quickly pause or skip without having to do the little dance of bringing iTunes into focus.

Version tested: 1.7

Compatibility: WinAll. Requires iTunes.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 564 megs).

If you’re looking for a simple, easy way to switch your desktop icons display on and off – literally at the press of a button – then check out this tiny little free app.

HideDesktopIcons emulates the “display desktop icon” command in the Windows context menu, packaged in a simple icon that can be placed anywhere (or alternately launched via a keyboard shortcut). A single click will hide the desktop icons and/or display them again; there is no user interface or any dialogs of any sort.

We do quite a bit of videoconferencing at work as well as screen sharing for presentations, and the first thing that I like to do in these situations is switch off my desktop icons (a clean desktop looks so much more professional and is so much nicer to look at).

One of the things I liked about the desktop icon organization tool Fences, which I used to have on my machine, was a secondary function whereby double clicking on any blank part of the screen would cause the desktop icons to be hidden or to re-appear. I no longer use that software but I miss the instant icon-hiding function. I therefore set out to find an app that will provide a comparable functionality, which lead me to HideDesktopIcons.

What I like about this software

1. It is just a single, simple button: unzip and use.
2. It can be placed anywhere: such as the Quick Launch menu in XP or on the taskbar in Windows 7. It can also be placed in your favorite launcher or pinned on the Start Menu, etc.
3. Can be launched via keyboard shortcut: right click properties then shortcut and enter a key combination in the “shortcut” field. You might need to place it in your start menu or your desktop for the shortcut to work.
4. It just works beautifully

Compatibility: WinAll. If you get an error when you run, make sure you have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package (x86) installed.

This software was found on the How-To Geek blog (scroll down for download links), and is an approx 82K download.

One way to describe this software is: take the Excel charting engine, make it a standalone app that can chart data from any source, and give it a web/community sharing component for publishing charts and dashboards on the web. Except this charting engine is light years ahead of Excel in terms of both its capabilities as well as ease of use.

But take note: Tableau Public, while free, is not the same as a free version of the Tableau. What the developers have done is create a version of Tableau that is fully functional, but only if you are willing to make the charts and the data you use public for others to potentially see. They did this by restricting the user’s ability to save their projects locally to their own hard drives, instead allowing them to only save to online storage accounts.

In other words, this product is geared towards bloggers or users of social media whose projects are designed for public consumption and/or publishing on the web (or personal projects where you might not care that someone else can potentially look at your data).

The basic premise behind a charting engine like this is that with so much data being freely published on the web, individual users or bloggers who have something to say can take this data and use a tool like Tableau to visually summarize it or outline certain relationships or a point of view.

The best way to illustrate what this software can do is through this demonstrational video (it feels like a commercial, I know, but its a good overview). Also see interactive demo below:

Here are more notes on this program:

• Ease of use: the developers deserve credit for making a powerful product that is nonetheless very accessible. The interface is certainly intuitive enough that those who like to experiment and tinker around before reading instructions will probably be plenty pleased. However, to get the most out of Tableau Public you can watch the training videos and/or read the help documents.
• Maps: are noteworthy because of the way Tableau Public can instantly embed your data onto a Google-maps style map and automatically zoom in and out. Add to this Tableau Public’s ability to instantly drill down and create interactive charts, and you can imagine the wow-factor that geographic-based charts can have.
• Interactivity: unlike Excel, charts created with Tableau are clickable and interactive, allowing you to click on any interesting part of the chart to drill down and/or explore further.
• Drag and drop: what is cool is that everything can be done with drag and drop, including the placement and positioning of whatever element is out there, making this software easy to learn and to use.
• Publishing on the web: is like any other element you add to a website (see demo below). Tableau Public will give you an embed code, and will make this embed code available for others to take and use in their own sites/blogs. (You may need to edit the width/height in the code, as I did, to fit the widget in your particular site template). What is interesting, though, is that you as the owner/creator of the visualization can keep control of your baby even after it is published. You can go in later and make additions and/or changes and the data visualizations will automatically reflect this without having to install a new embed code.
• “Show me”: this is a feature where you can ask Tableau for some visualization suggestions; click on a few fields and press this button, and Tableau will present you with some charting choices to begin with. Overall not a bad way to get started.
• Calculated fields: are supported. Tableau will let you create new fields using calculations performed on existing fields, very reminiscent of Excel.
• Dashboards vs. charts: the distinction may not be instantly obvious, but Tableau Public allows for the creation of dashboards with multiple charts embedded in them. These have an interactive component where users can play with the data via sliders or filters, etc.
• Data sources: aside from Excel, Access, and CSV/Text files, Tableau Public can access a wide range of data sources including many database servers.
• Downloading: you will have to provide a valid email address and create an online account to download.

The verdict: this software is simply terrific; I tested it with some work-related data and was so happy with my charts that I took screenshots to preserve them for later use (given that saving them publicly is out). As a tool designed to turn data into knowledge, and facilitate the public dissemination of information, Tableau public is in a league of its own.

The developers also deserves a nod for the original way they made this powerful tool available for free for public use, without compromising their business version. I am willing to bet that this will be come a very common model for software distribution.

[Thanks go to reader Varna for tipping me off about this one!]

Version Tested: 5.1

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 17 megs).

Live demo:

Ever wondered why you couldn’t preview and/or play screensaver files like any other media file? This, in fact, is exactly what the free Screensaver Player allows you to do. This little app allows you to manage screensavers and to them within small sub-windows on your screen.

It can even create playlists of favorite screensavers and shuffle through them at set time intervals.

If you download a lot of screensavers and would like a way to manage them (or) if you are occasionally curious about screensavers and like to download and preview them without the hassle of installing them in the system folder (and using the Windows screensaver dialog), then this app is for you.

Here’s the program in action:

Some notes:

• Playlists: will let you create and save playlists of screensavers on your machine, regardless of their location on your hard drive.
• Shuffle & View: will also let you view screensavers serially within a sub-window (whose resolution you can define via a dropdown). You can also define the number of seconds or minutes to view each screensaver before moving on to the next one. Strangely, the developer did not include an option for fullscreen serial viewing.
• Manage: you can configure screensavers, run them, or install them into the system folder via the Screensaver Player interface. The option to delete them was overlooked, though.

The verdict: a nice program overall, and I like to feature original and/or unusual software in my blog. I don’t see everyone clamoring to download this one. But I will confess that I am often briefly curious about screensavers but refrain from checking them out because of the hassle of installing and viewing them in Windows; so that may change now that I have this program.

Version Tested: 3.0

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 3.3 megs).

This free utility is brought to you by the people behind the processlibrary.com website. What it does is tweak the Windows Task Manager to add a little green button next to each process in the process list (see screenshot), which when clicked instantly searches processlibrary.com for information on the process you are interested in.

ProcessQuicklink 2 is a tiny app that comes in at less that I meg of memory usage. Process information appears on the processlibrary.com website in your browser.

You may be wondering as to who might need an app like this, so here’s a list

1. People, like myself, who install a whole lot of software and frequently like to check out what is going on in their system
2. Anyone who may be investigating an issue such as erratic windows behavior or potential malware.
3. Ubergeeks in general.

Search box: one thing that appears in the screenshots on the developers’ site that does not appear in my screenshot is a little searchbox built into the Task Manager that can be used to quickly search the processlibrary.com site. I am unsure as to whether that function was since removed or if it simply didn’t work on Windows 7 64bit (where I tested). In any case hope that it is optional, as it seems like too much clutter in the little space that is the task manager.

The verdict: I will have to tip my hat to the people at processlibrary.com for such a brilliant idea so well implemented. I am unclear, however, as to whether this website ranks amongst the most comprehensive of its kind, as it seems that most of the processes on my system simply found no match in their database, necessitating a Google search in order to get any kind of info.

Still, at under 1 meg in memory I am willing to give this little utility a chance and let it live on on my system and hope that this app helps processlibrary.com build up their library. Also it is just so super cool to click a button to get info on a process!

Version Tested: 2.0.0.12

Compatibility: Requires Windows 2000 / 2003 / XP / Vista, an Internet connection and an Internet browser.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 412K).

UNetbootin (Universal Netboot Installer) is a small, free, cross platform app that can download and install Linux (or other operating system) on a bootable USB drive or a hard drive partition. It supports a wide range of Linux builds (25+ and growing) out of the box that it will automatically download from the net, or it can work with any locally downloaded ISO images that you might want to use.

It can also automatically download and create Live versions of various system utilities, such as Parted Magic, System Rescue CD, Ophcrack, and Kaspersky Rescue Disk to name a few examples.

If you would like an operating system on a USB drive then this tool is what you’re looking for. The nice things about booting Linux from a USB rather than a Live CD is that obviously you can save your data on the USB, so it’s a viable computer-on-a-stick, so to speak.

The beauty of UNetbootin is not that it can instantly create a bootable OS on a USB for you (which it does), but rather that it can deliver the latest build of so many Linux distros and LiveCD utilities instantly. It is also extremely simple and easy to use; you will literally get through the entire process from start to finish at the press of a button.

More notes below:

• How it works: download and run, no install needed. You will be asked to select your OS or LiveCD from a dropdown (or specify a downloaded ISO), choose where to install (USB drive or local drive), and you’re done. Ok so there are a few other options but most users will not be interested in these.
• Will it work: yes, although when I tried it I was able to install Slax effortlessly but Ubuntu 9.10 Live did not boot. It is possible that I selected the wrong version to install though; I may have needed to select the “netinstall” version from the dropdown for a USB installation.
• Installing other OS’s: it is possible to install any other OS to bootable USB or to a local drive. You will need either an ISO file or disk image file.
• Non-destructive install: which means that it will not format your drive, and any data that you may have on there will be preserved and will still be there even after installation.
• Linux distros supported: a huge list, including the latest builds of Ubuntu (and official derivatives), Damn Small Linux, Frugalware Linux, Sabayon Linux, Puppy Linux, Linux Mint, Arch Linux, Dreamlinux, gNewSense, PCLinuxOS, openSUSE, Mandriva, FreeBSD, Zenwalk, Debian, SliTaz, NetBSD, Fedora, Gentoo, CentOS, FaunOS, MEPIS, Elive, Slax, and xPUD.
• Unsupported distros: if you are interested in a Linux distro that is not supported, simply download it and point Unetbootin to the ISO file.
• System tools supported: Parted Magic (partition manager), SystemRescueCD, (system repair/recovery), Super Grub Disk, Dr.Web Antivirus, F-Secure Rescue CD, Kaspersky Rescue Disk, Backtrack (network analysis), Ophcrack (recover Windows passwords), NTPasswd (reset Windows passwords), Gujin, (a graphical bootloader), Smart Boot Manager (SBM), and FreeDOS.
• Uninstallation: simply format your USB. If removing an uninstall from a local drive you might want to read the instructions on the UNetbootin website.

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

• A cleanup option: UNetbootin downloads and extracts huge ISO files to “Appdata\Local\Temp” and unless you seek them out and erase them afterwards they will occupy space needlessly (and, I have found, by default are not removed by CCleaner).
• Download size indicator: would be nice if it told you the download size of your selected build before you gave the go-ahead, as this might influence what you end up choosing. You will know this once you get to the download screen, of course, and can always go back and change your selection. But it makes more sense to give that info up front.

The verdict: very nice; not just for its ease of use but also for the range of supported Live CDs, including terrific system utilities such as parted Magic and the Kaspersky Rescue Disk.

Can also be quite handy if you have the ISO for any other OS and want to make a bootable USB out of that. Overall highly recommended.

Version Tested: 3.91

Compatibility: Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, or Linux. If you are downloading your Linux builds from the net (as opposed to using a pre-downloaded ISO image) you will need a good, broadband internet connection.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 4.358 megs).

ICSI Netalyzr is a service maintained by the Networking Group at the International Computer Science Institute, an affiliate with the University of California, Berkeley  and funded by the National Science Foundation. The service got some publicity and found importance after late 2007 when Comcast was sued for throttling Internet traffic which Comcast later admitted to be true.

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

Netalyzr is not the traditional freeware covered here at Freewaregenius, but it is a free service that allows you to test and find out more information about the Internet connection you’re paying for. With no real established metrics for what an ISP must provide, Netalyzr gives you the inside scoop in a convenient report. By running the test, not only will you find out information about your connection and its capabilities, but you’ll also share information with researchers that may improve the Internet infrastructure and provide data to the Net Neutrality argument. From their Learn More page:

The Netalyzr analyzes various properties of your Internet connection that you should care about — including blocking of important services, HTTP caching behavior and proxy correctness, your DNS server’s resilience to abuse, NAT detection, as well as latency & bandwidth measurements — and reports its findings in a detailed report.

Netalyzr is a simple 3-step process and simply requires that you have Java installed and visit a site with your browser. From the ICSI Netalyzr home page, just click the Start analysis link. If you don’t see the text, Start analysis, it means you don’t have a compatible version of Java installed. After you start the test, you’ll be prompted to allow the Java Applet run from the International Computer Science Institute. Hit Run, if you want to take the test.

After the Applet begins running, you can watch the status to see all the different things that are tested. The test will take a few minutes to complete so you might want to let it run while you’re doing something else. Visiting other websites should not effect the final results, so maybe go play some Chibi Knight or go visit my website, 404 Tech Support.

After the test completes, you’ll get a long list telling you the results of the tests in accurate, but not-too-technical terms. This can alert you to any problems with your connection, issues with your router, or limitations of your ISP. A small example of what the results can tell you include NAT detection, Access to remote ports: FTP, IMAP/SSL, BitTorrent, DNS, HTTP; Connection Latency; Upload and Download speeds; IPv6 compatibility, and many more. Netalyzr has a sample results page that you can view to see all of what gets tested.

One small note is that your antivirus might give you a notice (not an alert or a warning) because of some of the ports that Netalyzr tests, but everything is safe.

You can visit the site and take the test at ICSI Netalyzr’s page hosted by UC-Berkley. Be sure to check out their links to similar projects if this kind of thing interests you.

At heart, this software is a web-clipping tool with online storage, similar to Evernote. Yet Notable App is designed for sharing clipped web pages with collaborators, making notes on them and receiving feedback in a kind of virtual conversation.

Notable App is a web app used in conjunction with a Firefox extension or IE bookmarklet (or even an iPhone app) in order to create and upload web clips or screenshots that can later be shared for feedback with friends, colleagues, or collaborators.This program seems to be geared towards creative teams of designers, webmaster, usability designers, developers and SEO practitioners interested in dissecting websites and sharing knowledge not just on the content of websites but on the way they were put together.

However, you can use Notable App any way you want, as a web clipping app or a platform to simply share sites that you find, like, and choose to clip. Up to three people can use Notable for free; adding more will require paid licenses.

The best way to get a feel for what this app is about is to view this demonstration video:

The concept here is fairly simple: a web-clipping tool with online storage where you can share your clippings with others on your team, and where they can respond and/or look at the shared websites in a number of different ways that help them comment on the design, metadata, and source code. A fairly innovative and noteworthy concept in theory, except I am not quite sure who this tool is targeted to, who these teams of fanatical website-analyzers would be, and how many of them are out there.

Which may not matter too much, because as with any tool you can create your own uses for it. You could also use it simply as a web-clipping tool with online storage and sharing options. The web clipping component is generally a good one, except it really needs to get a lot better (see wish list below for more on this).

More notes on this program below:

• Types of ’views’ available: (1) a straight screenshot of the clipped website; (2) a text-only stripped version, (3) the source code of the page, and (4) the metadata/SEO tags. Strangely, there is no “normal” view where you view a straight, functional webpage that you could interact with, click on functional links, etc.
• Ways of capturing data: by using a Firefox extension or IE bookmarklet, by uploading an image into the web app, by specifying a URL to capture, or by using the iPhone plugin to capture and share iPhone screenshots.
• Giving feedback: you can give feedback within any of the different views available; i.e. the screenshot view, the text-only view, etc. See the above video for a demonstration.
• Workspaces: you can create workspaces (which are similar to categories) and, once you’ve added feedback on something you can add to a workspace. Strangely, there doesn’t seem to be a way to add clips to workspaces without giving feedback first.
• Sharing: once you give feedback on something you can make it public or keep it private and share with your contacts. An easy way to share-in-batch is to create a “set”, add multiple entries to it and then share the set as a whole. Or you can give a contact access to a workspace so that they will always be able to view its particular contents.
• iPhone app: I didn’t test this myself, but the iPhone app seems to be designed for capturing screenshots from your iPhone and uploading these to your account. I am unclear as to whether you can use the iPhone app to browse clippings and feedback.

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

• The ability to clip a ’normal’, ’functional’ site: i.e. a site where you can click on the links and preview any functionality, such as being able to see what the options are for dropdowns in a form. I know that both Evernote and my favorite desktop-based “Local Website Archive Lite” will let you do this.
• Categorization and/or tagging: is not really supported in any way (you can use workspaces as categories, but only after you add feedback to your clips).
• A “visual” interface: i.e. the ability to drag thumbnails to workspaces or sets, etc. (this is a wishlist after all).

The verdict: this is an innovative and generally well-designed application. However, like I said previously I am not entirely sure who the intended audience is. The free version allows you to share feedback with up to 3 people, which further limits its usefulness.

Still, I am guessing that for some readers this may be exactly the app that they were looking for, and if that is the case for you please leave a note in the comments section below and let us know how you are using it.

My 2 cents: I really think they should focus on (1) making Notable App out to be the best online web clipping app out there, which is to say a direct competitor of Evernote. This will broaden its audience while still maintaining the differentiating aspects of sharing feedback; and (2) doing away with the 3-contacts limit for the free app, because it will merely stand in the way of this application ever achieving a critical mass.

Compatibility: a modern browser. Firefox extension available but you can use a Javascript bookmarlet for IE (and potentially other browsers).

Go to the Notable App site to signup and download.

Seesmic Look is the first Twitter client I’ve used and I have to say it simplifies a whole lot over Twitter.com. Seesmic Look’s best feature isn’t just something that would come with any client though, it looks very polished and presents information in a visually appealing way. Designed to match the graphics of Windows 7, Seesmic Look still works on Windows XP, Server 2008, and Vista as well as Windows 7.

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

Beyond the good looks, Seesmic look also presents Twitter information in a more useful, more presentable way than the Twitter website. Things like Channels, Interests, and “playback mode” all channel information into a usable, eye-catching way. First, however, we’ll need to install Seesmic Look. Its installer runs under a megabyte (669 KB) and requires .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. From what I’ve seen, the Seesmic.Look.exe process runs right around 100MB while in use.

After installing Seesmic (which is a very fast process), you’ll get a little tutorial to explain Seesmic’s interface and features. It was fairly straight-forward but I found the interface to be intuitive enough that I skimmed through the tutorial and was able to find my way around just fine.

When you first launch Seesmic, you’ll be greeted with bubbles fading in explaining current trends. It’s a pretty interesting visual display of the information, but you can also have it displayed in a list by chronological order or alphabetical order. You can also choose to see current trends, trends of the day, or of the week.

You can update your status or perform a search at any point using the text boxes at the top of the screen. You can also easily do a public reply or direct message to a person or retweet something by using the buttons on the right side of the screen.

You can use Seesmic to filter all of the information on Twitter down to things that interest you. Clicking ‘Interests’ on the left side will bring up another list of categories that you can use to filter down to your interests. You’ll then be viewing tweets that are relevant to your interests to help immerse you in the “real-time web”.

Channels are similar to Interests, but they are branded channels deriving their content from Twitter accounts associated with particular companies. There are a number of different channels like Time Magazine, Huffington Post, New York Times, and more.

Seesmic helps you delve into the Twitter-verse and find out lots of information going on in our crazy world, but Seesmic Look does it in a visually appealing way. If you’d like to download Seesmic Look, you can find it on the Seesmic Look Download Page.

If you’re looking for the Seesmic organization of Twitter, but don’t need the visual components of Seesmic Look you should still investigate other products by the same developers:

• Seesmic for Windows
• Seesmic Desktop (for Mac or Linux with Adobe AIR)
• Seesmic Mobile for BlackBerry or Android phones

Another day, another free utility that puts nifty function in the right click context menu. And although it may seem that we’ve seen a lot of the functions that Lammer Context menu offers before, a closer look will reveal some very interesting and noteworthy functions on here, such as mounting folders as virtual drives, search and replace file contents, batch file-and-folder renaming, select all similar files by type, and path operations (copy/move/list/delete) using regular expressions. Supports 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems both.

This app was mentioned in the comments section of my JDcontextmenu review (thanks reader “Free” for letting me know about it). This was the same discussion where it was mostly agreed that LopeSoft’s FileMenu Tools was likely the best free app (or at least one of the best) in it’s class in terms of installing useful functions in the context menu.

However, you should definitely check out Lammer Context menu for the following reasons:

• The functions are noteworthy and interesting (see my top 5 favorites below)
• The program is generally very well designed; you can tell that a lot of attention to detail went into each and every function.
• 32 bit and 64 bit versions available. I mention this because every since I switched to 64 bit Windows 7 a few months ago I’ve noticed that a lot of Windows extensions do not offer 64 bit support. It plays nice with the Windows UAC as well.

My Top 5 Lammer Context Menu functions

(1) Batch Rename:

Very handy tool with a well designed tabbed interface. Supports a wide range of interventions, and can be used to batch-rename files using a base name and number sequence. Will display previews of changes before renaming.

(2) Mount path as virtual drive:

This option allows you to right click on any folder and mount is as a virtual drive; i.e. give it its own drive letter and access it as a drive from “My Computer”. This lasts until you reboot or right click on the virtual drive and unmount the folder later on. If you want a more permanent way to do this, or at least one that survives a reboot, check out previously mentioned Visual Subst.

(3) Search and replace

Right click on a folder in order to perform search and replace operations on the files within it. You can search using regular expressions and search recursively through subdirectories as well. Search results are neatly displayed within the interface and so that you can preview the search/replace operation before implementing.

(4) Path operations

This will let you perform copy/move/delete or change attribute operations on folder contents intelligently. Suppose you want to move all files that are bigger than x K in size, whose modification date is on or after a certain date, who have either .jpg, .gif, or .png extensions to a new folder while preserving relative paths, this function can easily do this for you. This function will process folders recursively, supports regular expressions, and will let you invert your set of results by simply checking a box.

What’s worth mentioning is that if you have a set of criteria/filters that you want to re-use you can easily save them as a template.

(5) Select by Type

Right click on any file and choose “select by type” and all of the files of the same extension in that location will be selected for you. Very cool.

The verdict: this app gives an impression of being generally well designed and well built. What I like about it is that it packages a range of useful functions in one place in the right-click context menu. Aside from my favorite functions detailed above, it also includes staple functions that everyone should have such as “command prompt in current folder”, “copy path”, “jump to shortcut target”, and “calculate checksum”, etc.

And although it doesn’t offer the range of functions that FileMenu tools offers (or the ability to customize the context menu and manage other, third party extensions), it still offers a lot of value.

Note that this app is still in its early stages and some aspects of it (e.g. help files) are not fully implemented yet. These kinks will be ironed out in time, and I hope that new functions will be made available going forward, as mentioned somewhere on the program web site.

Version Tested: 1.0.1.4

Compatibility: Supports Windows XP through Windows 7, 32 and 64bit. Requires .NET Framework 3.51 for XP.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 1.51 megs).

Check out the following video to see PageZipper in action:

PageZipper is a free Firefox extension and IE Bookmarklet that can merge articles or listings spanning multiple pages into a single browser page. It is useful in situations where you are interested in grabbing a web-clipping or exporting the entire article or listing to another application in one fell swoop, or simply if you would prefer not to have to keep pressing the “next” button to get through the article.

I’ve known about this browser extension for a while, but I am writing about it now after using it recently and finding it to be an invaluable tool.

I recently needed to download some 450 or so entries into Excel from a browser-based workflow and ticketing system that we use at work . There is no “export” function and I simply intended to copy and paste the rows of text into my spreadsheet. The only problem was that there were 40 listings per each displayed page in the browser, and that number was not customizible. I would have had to manually browse through a dozen or so pages and copy and paste a whole bunch of times in order to complete what I thought should have been a fairly straightforward process. This is when I remembered the PageZipper bookmarklet on my browsers; a single click loaded all listings pages instantly into the same browser page, and a single copy/paste transferred all the data into my spreadsheet all at once.

Here are more notes on this program:

• It works well: in articles or listings that employ “next” links to move to the next page, including most search-style results.
• It does not work well: in articles or pages that do not use “next” links or use a custom navigation scheme such as javascript (it does not work well with this site).
• Headers and footers: from all pages are loaded into your consolidated page. This means that if you want to grab the information on the page and are concerned about esthetics you will have to go in later on and clean up your web clipping manually.
• Be careful how you use: using PageZipper on search results that may span dozens or hundreds of pages means that your browser will be downloading and appending pages forever, and you will have to abort.
• How to install: for Firefox you simply install a plugin. For IE you will need to place a Javascript bookmarklet on your favorites toolbar (or in your favorites folder). Instructions on how to do this are on the PageZipper site.

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

• The option to specify a specific number of “next” links to load. For example, if I am looking at a set of results that span 100 pages I might want to, say, consolidate and clip the first 5 pages only. It would be great if I could specify this, although I realize that it may be tough to embed too much interactive functionality into a javascript bookmarklet.

The verdict: a brilliant and original idea. This little service will be extremely valuable to anyone who does a lot of research on the internet (and/or a lot of clipping of web content). It will also be very valuable to anyone who might work with browser-based reporting systems where they might want to grab/clip or quickly copy information that spans many pages wholesale into the clipboard.

Compatibility: Requires Internet Explorer or Firefox browser.

Go to the PageZipper page to get the latest version.

JDcontextmenu is a free app that installs a wide range of commands in Windows’ right click context menu. You’ve seen many of these before; here’s a list: "copy full path", ""copy name", CMD line here, MD5 checksum, FileDateTime Stamp, Create new folder(s), send fullname by email as a link, add file to startup folder, clear folders and a favorites folder function; conveniently, however JDcontextmenu allows you to pick and choose the configuration you want and the order in which they appear.

A nice little utility that provides a number of useful tools at your fingertips, and packages them neatly in a single context menu entry. Most of these functions are self explanatory (copy full path, copy name, CMD line here, MD5 checksum, FileDateTime Stamp, send fullname by email as link, add file to startup folder); however, here are a few notes that may be of interest:

1. Lets you pick and choose: the functions you would like to display and use.
2. The "clear folders" function: is interesting. It allows you to right click and clear temp files or empty folders from a folder. You can define your own wildcard/pattern for the kind of files you want to delete (see screenshot to the right).
3. The "new folder" function: also interesting. Can create a bunch of numbered folders.
4. The favorite folders function: lets you define favorite folders and access them via the context menu (see screenshot to the right). But this is flawed, unfortunately, as (a) it only works when you are right clicking on a file or folder (as opposed to when you are just hovering on the desktop), (b) it doesn’t work in windows open/save dialogs, and (c) it requires users to restart Windows explorer when adding or changing favorite folders for the changes to "take", which is rather inconvenient.
5. 32 bit only: no 64 bit version, unfortunately.

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

• A 64 bit version: please
• The ability to install entries in the root of the context menu: rather than within the JDcontextmenu entry, as an option.
• A better favorite folder function: see point #4 above.

The verdict: a nice utility overall. I am very keen on cool functions added to the right click menu (see Shell Tools, Open++, QwikTulz, and my favorite FileMenu Tools).

I’ve already gone over my wish list above on how JDcontextmenu can be better, but will re-iterate the hope that the would release a 64 bit version as I am running a 64 bit version of Windows and cannot use it on my machine. If you’re running a 32 bit version of windows definitely check this one out you will like it.

Version Tested: 1.3

Compatibility: Windows 9x, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, 2003. I tested on Windows 7, so I would add Windows 7 and Vista to this list. 32 bit OS’s only.

Go to the program home pageto download the latest version (approx 4.75 megs).

Do not mistake this program with the previously mentioned MP3 merging app from the same author. MakeItOne FileBrowser 32 is a free program that installs a right-click shell extension in your 64-bit Windows environment that launch a 32-bit browser set to the current path/folder, enabling the user to quickly access any installed Windows extensions that may be installed in the 32 bit environment and that would not appear in the 64 bit Windows explorer.

If you’ve switched to a 64 bit versions of Windows, as I have, you may have noticed that many right-click shell extensions associated with some programs (specifically those written for a 32 bit environment) no longer appear in the Windows context menu. These shell / Windows extensions, however will still work in a 32 bit environment, and the objective of this app is to quickly launch a 32 bit file browser that provides instant access to any 32 bit Windows/shell extensions that may be installed on your system.

To use this program you can right click any file or folder and choose “FileBrowser32″ from the context menu. A 32-bit file browser will appear in the current folder location, allowing you to right click on files and use the 32-bit context menu. That is all the program is supposed to do (selecting files and clicking on them will do nothing). Another way to invoke this program is to launch the program from the start menu; it will appear in the system tray and can be accessed there.

The verdict: some readers, like myself, will be quite excited about this little context menu utility; others, however, who might not have any 32-bit explorer extensions they particularly use or miss do not need this.

If you do use a 64 bit Windows it is best to find Window tweaks/extensions and generally speaking software that does what you want and is specifically compiled for 64 bit OS’s. But that is not always possible, especially with free software that may no longer be in development; in which case this little app will come in handy, at least for the time being.

If I were to suggest one improvement it would be to remove the “FileBrowser32″ context menu entry from the 32 bit browser. I am not sure why it is there, if any reason at all.

Version Tested: 1.01

Compatibility: Any 64-bit Windows OS.

Go to here to download the latest version (approx 140K).

MakeItOne MP3 Album Maker is a free app that can merge multiple MP3s while maintaining full reversibility (the ability to unpack/split the file into its original constituents at any later point). Merged files can be played on any player and MakeItOne and can preserve and edit the audio file tags and add album art as well. It can also unpack audio files packed by the Albumwrap shareware app which are commonly found on the net.

Possible uses are up to your imagination, and include merging disparate chapters or parts of an audiobook into a single file, archiving and organizing albums, and creating a single file for easier publishing or sharing on the net.

Ir ecently downloaded an audiobook that was dispersed over 36 or so separate MP3 files. As I started listening I realized that it was quite difficult to keep track of where I last left off and which of the numbered files I had already listened to. Also, it was impossible to get an overall mental picture of how many minutes I had listened to and how many still remain.

This is when I started looking for free programs that can merge audio files into one, and MakeItOne MP3 Album Maker is one of the best that I found. Here’s what I like about it:

1. The merging process is reversible: MakeItOne seems to store the information needed for this within the audio file itself.
2. Preserves audio tags: with the ability to edit this data before combining.
3. Ability to add album art: within the MP3 file itself, from a locally saved image file. Will not fetch from the internet.
4. Nice Interface: with drag and drop functionality
5. Command line interface/scripting option: is available
6. Can split Albumwrap-merged files: which you may occasionally encounter on the internet.
7. Supports VBR: in some fashion. MP3s that are between 96-320Kbps 44KHz 16bit Stereo should play fine, but the duration of the album will be misreporeted. However, to quote the developer’s site, the program’s "support for VBR is no worse currently than any other Album Maker/Joiner/Wrapper Mp3 application." Go here for more info.

The verdict: if you need to merge MP3 files this is one of the best options around. If I could ask for one feature, however, it would be the option to save CUE files, which some related programs utilize. Aside from that I can report this program does exactly what it promises and does it well. Recommended.

Version Tested: 3.4

Compatibility: WinAll. Requires MS .NET Framework 1.1 or higher for XP.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 432K).

This free app allows you to use your monitors more effectively by dividing your screen into custom sections. It mimics the Windows 7 snap feature but goes further by allowing you to place your windows into any of two, three, or four sections on the screen through drag and drop. It also works with all versions of Windows and even works well alongside the Windows 7 snap feature (you can have both working together simultaneously).

Acer GridVista supports a custom configuration for each monitor, and provides a great user experience. It also offers a handful of other functions, such as transparency and stay-on-top options.

The ability to snap your windows to sections of the screen has become very fashionable after it was introduced with windows 7, and once you get accustomed to having this feature it becomes integral to the way you use your computer. Acer GridVista is one of a handful of free programs that provide this and has a few points to recommend it:

1. It is activated on drag and drop, or by using the special buttons it adds to the top right of your open windows next to the default minimize, maximize, and close buttons (see image to the right).
2. It works with multiple monitors, each with its own custom configuration. It also allows for extending the desktop into external monitors (a feature which I did not test because I do not have one).
3. It sticks to a range of 4 possible configurations, giving users an excellent range of options while not going overboard with too many screen configurations that may be too complex or esoteric (see images to the bottom, to the right).
4. It adds a couple of other functions: namely transparency and pin on top of other windows.
5. Can easily be disabled: on any individual window: using the aforementioned button extensions on the top right of your window.
6. Plays well with Windows’ 7 snap function. This is because the Windows 7 snap behavior kicks in once you drag a window to the edge, while GridVista can kick in the moment you hold down the mousebutton.

Wish list: I am not sure if this program is still in development, but all the same here are some suggestions that can make this program can be even better.

• The ability to set it to be inactive by default. With GridVista any window you move will be poised for snapping to a pre-defined area, even if you are simply interested in moving it. You can disable GridVista easily using the buttons on the top right, but it would be nice if you could set it to be inactive by default and only activate it when you need it.

The verdict: if you do not have Windows 7 and would like the snap functionality this program is an excellent option and one of the best programs of the sort around (I’ve reviewed a few which I will mention below). Acer GridVista is free, useful and delivers exactly what it promises.

If you would like a more powerful program, however, that offers more options (although admittedly at the cost of more complexity) you might want to look at WinSplit Revolution, which is one of my favorites.

Thanks to user usersp001 for letting me know about this program (he/she mentioned it in the comments for my MaxTo posting, which is another similar program).

Version Tested: 2.72.317

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to this page on Softpedia to download or go here for more information (approx 1.8 megs).