Monthly Disk March 2009

Freeware

Audio

Audacity - Ver: 1.3.5 Beta

Audacity is a true multi-purpose audio manipulation program. It has a great variety of tools to record and perform editing tasks.

With all the industry-standard effects, you can combine it with other music software, master recordings or digitise older tracks from your analogue collection.

Poor quality tracks can be optimised with a high quality noise removal tool and exported to MP3 format.

NOTE: Beta or prerelease software is not intended for inexperienced users, as the software may contain bugs or may potentially damage your system. We strongly recommend that users exercise caution and save all mission-critical data before installing or using this software.

Minimum requirements: Windows 2000/ XP/ Vista

mp3DirectCut - Ver: 2.10

mp3DirectCut is a non-destructive audio editor and recorder for MP3. You can directly cut, copy, paste or change the volume with no need to decompress your files into a pcm format.

This saves encoding time and preserves the original audio quality, because absolutely nothing must be re-encoded.

The built in recorder lets you create MP3s "on the fly" from every source. Using the Cue sheet support or the pause detection and the split function you can easily divide longer files, e.g. CD images.

mp3DirectCut is very fast and gives you extensive edit functionality:

• MP3 visualisation and VU meter
• Easy navigation
• Fading, volume setting, normalizing
• Pause detection
• Direct recording of MP3 (ACM and Lame encoder supported. Requires Lame Encoder Installed)
• Layer 2 support
• ID3v1.1 support
• Cue Sheet support

Minimum requirements: Windows all

Backups

LojiklSweep - Ver: 2.6.1.0

LojiklSweep was created out of a desire to be able to customise an enterprise's backup requirements.

LojiklSweep is a flexible and reliable backup utility that will allow you to twist and turn it around to fit almost any backup task.

Here are some key features of "LojiklSweep" :-

• A Simple yet effective User Interface
• A backup project defines what to backup, and scheduled tasks define when,where and how.
• No need to tediously define what to backup for each schedule.
• Backup Weekly to your office server with Compression.
• Backup Daily to your second Hard Disk without Compression.
• Easily specify what to back up and what not to backup. NEW! Built-in "Providers" will automatically find where your mail is stored, where your documents are stored and include them in the backup.
• Advanced Time stamping lets you backup to folders that are created by using the Current Date, or just part of the date
• Easily restore files. Files are not hidden or disguised in anyway. Simply browse to your Backup folder or Compressed Archive find the file(s) or Registry settings you need and simply copy them back.

Desktop

Desktops - Ver: 1.0

Desktops allows you to organise your applications on up to four virtual desktops. Read email on one, browse the web on the second, and do work in your productivity software on the third, without the clutter of the windows you’re not using.

After you configure hotkeys for switching desktops, you can create and switch desktops either by clicking on the tray icon to open a desktop preview and switching window, or by using the hotkeys.

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

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

Minimum requirements: Windows XP/ 2003/ Vista

John`s Background Switcher - Ver: 3.6

John`s Background Switcher enables you to automatically switch your desktop wallpaper every 'X' hours.

Lightscreen - Ver: 0.3

Lightscreen is a customisable program to take screen shots.

Minimum requirements: Windows 9x/ Me/ NT/ 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista

Real Desktop Light - Ver: 1.44

This software will transform your desktop into a real one, as it was meant to be.

As you most probably know, the file queues on your Desktop become ever longer, with daily additions of new files and slowly but surely you lose the overview.

Are you missing the certain order, the feeling of a genuine desk, simply the reality? Real Desktop brings back this experience to you again!

Your icons behave now, thanks to the powerful physics-engine, like real objects that you can touch and move as on a real desk.

Here are some key features of "Real Desktop Light" :-

• Running behaviour:
• 3D Sound
• Activatable Antialiasing
• No performance losses with resting condition of the symbols
• Few resources needed
• Very efficient, thanks to the "Reality Engine"

Screenshot Captor - Ver: 2.44.02

Screenshot Captor was designed for grabbing screenshot's with minimal intervention.

Screenshot Captor has great multi monitor support and includes a full image explorer with full shell functionality and unsurpassed integration with external tools like graphic editors, water markers, etc.

The program also supports unique effects not seen in other capture tools, including the ability to automatically locate and enhance the active window.

Supports tons of image capture methods, including full screen, multimonitor workspace, arbitrary regions, fixed sized areas, or gdi objects. Suppors gif, png, jpg, tiff and others. Easily embeds user comments in any image type.

Digital Imaging

3D Picture Browser - Ver: 1.0

3D Picture Browser is a piece of software that provides an exceptional visually rich experience for browsing your photos.

It features a revolutionary real-time 3D user interface, an innovative cursor-detection technology, and the simplest controls ever created on a Windows application: no scrollbars, no double-click, no right-click, just move the mouse and left-click.

Whether you were disappointed by the lack of breathtaking innovations in the latest operating systems, or whether you are looking for something to impress your friends and relatives with, 3D Picture Browser is the software you need.

FotoSketcher - Ver: 1.81

Turn your digital photos into beautiful pencil sketches in seconds. FotoSketcher allows you to create images that seem like they have been hand drawn by some of the best artists.

FxFoto - Ver: 6.0.071

FxFoto provides a single tool for automatically organising, editing, enhancing, annotating, e-mailing, printing, uploading, and archiving your digital photos.

Gentibus CD - Ver: 1.47

Gentibus CD enables you to scan your photo CDs or removable drives and store thumbnail images of the pictures on your PC.

Image Resizer - Ver: 1.2

This freeware program helps you resize your favourite images to bigger or smaller size (blow or shrink).

Porta - Ver: 1.02

If you'd like to create photo albums on the Web, you won't find a simpler way to do it than using Porta. With a click or two, you'll be able to create completely formatted HTML-based albums, ready for the Web. To make the album live, upload its entire folder on your hard disk to your Web site. That's all it takes.

To create an album, run the program, select the folder with the photos you want to put on the Web, and Porta creates the album. The program integrates with Windows Explorer; you can instead right-click a folder, and then select Porta to launch and create the album. You can also edit your album by choosing thumbnail sizes, image sizes, adding skins, and more. And you can add captions as well. If you prefer photo albums on CD, you can copy them to a CD.

If you use a Web-based photo sharing service, such as Flickr, Shutterfly, or others, you won't have a need for Porta. But if you have your own Web site, and want to put photo albums on it, this freebie is a great bet.

Disk Tools

Disk Investigator - Ver: 1.31

Disk Investigator helps you to discover all that is hidden on your computer's hard disk.

Drive Manager - Ver: 4.0

Drive Manager has been written to help you easily identify drives which are of the same type. As well as displaying the volume label it also displays vendor information so that multiple CD/DVD drives and removable drives such as USB thumb drives can be differentiated by their manufacturers name, version and revision date. Also the serial number can be seen as a unique ID for each drives.

Drive Manager will continually monitors the space available for each of your drive letters. You can also open a drive in explorer by double clicking on it.
The Floppy disk drive letters A and B are ignored.

It will automatically refresh every 10 seconds. This save you having to use the "My Computer" in windows and then change to the report view.

The volume label is displayed for all removable drives as well as local drives. This is useful if you have lots of thumb drives or smart media, compact flash etc.

The serial number column is useful for keeping track of which hard disk is which or for logging you customers hard disk serial numbers.

Individual drives can be hidden from Windows explorer. You can do this by right clicking on a drive and selected Hide Drive from the popup menu. The drives will still be visible in Drive Manager so you can make then visible again.

Email

Portable Thunderbird - Ver: 2.0.0.19

Mozilla Thunderbird™, Portable Edition is the popular Mozilla Thunderbird email client bundled with a PortableApps.com launcher.

VaultletSuite 2 Go - Ver: 2.7.9.0

VaultletSuite 2 Go installs on your thumb/USB drive or hard disk and it is the first industrial strength protecting software that is really easy to use.

The VaultletSuite 2 Go uses Open Source 2048 bit RSA public key and 256 AES encryption, and is the easiest way to protect and control your spam-free email, passwords and important files wherever you and USB drive may roam: from home to work and anywhere in between.

VaultletSuite 2 Go contains the following services:

VaultletMail: not only do you get get secure spam free email, but you can also control whether your messages are printed, archived, forwarded, and even how long they live before they cease to exist. Not only that but you can receive guaranteed receipts too.

PasswordValet: with one click you can edit and protect your valuable account and password information. You can store them on your USB drive or our server.

VaultletFiler: with one click you can protect the valuable files that you store on your USB drive. With that one click, you're protected from theft or unintended exposure of your valuable information.

VaultletMail DropBox: Anyone can send you a secure message using it. All it takes is two clicks to send you a point-to-point encrypted email message: one click to start the secure editor applet, and another one to encrypt it and send it on its way to you.

SpecialDelivery BETA: gives VaultletMail users the ability to send encrypted time and view constrained content to anyone in the world, regardless of which email system or client they use. This means that recipients of SpecialDelivery messages will benefit from your desire to protect and control your communications with them even if they don't have a VaultletMail account.

Entertainment

LEGO Digital Designer for Windows - Ver: 2.3

As far back as 1999, a group of visionary LEGO product developers and engineers started thinking about letting people design their own LEGO products. They imagined people of all ages, anywhere in the world, being able create any design they could dream up – using an intuitive, free tool for digital design.

The first milestone was achieved in July 2003, when version 1.0 of LEGO Digital Designer was released. In February 2004, an online 3D Gallery went live, allowing designers to share their ideas via the Internet. By 2005, thousands of LEGO Factory enthusiasts were designing, sharing and ordering their own custom models – and the one-millionth copy of LEGO Digital Designer was downloaded on 25 September that year.

Now at version 2.3, LEGO Digital Designer is quite simply the best virtual building system out there – with its “Click-Stick” method of 3D modeling winning praise from children, parents, teachers and design enthusiasts everywhere. And, as the virtual design platform behind a growing number of LEGO products, LEGO Digital Designer is here to stay. A host of improvements and new features are already in development, including an improved user interface, new connectivity, more life-like building, Technic compatibility and improved train building and animation. So stay tuned – with LEGO Digital Designer, the future is yours.

Minimum requirements: Windows all

Games

Chinese Checkers - Ver: 1.1.0

We're going back in time and we put the hands on an ancient game of Chinese Checkers. In this game you and the computer compete to move the pegs to the enemy base as quickly as possible.

A peg can make consecutive jumps to speed up its movement, so you need to strategically place your pegs so that your other pegs can make long consecutive jumps.

At the same time you should also try your best to block the jumps of the computer.

Minimum requirements: Windows all/ .NET Framework 2.0

Garden of Coloured Lights - Ver: 1.1

In this age of "sandbox" games, multi player online whatever, and user-generated content, sometimes, you just want to sit back and blow some... stuff... up. The whimsically named Garden of Coloured Lights allows you to do just that, with class vector-style graphics and a few nifty game play enhancements.

For example, you get three weapon slots on your ship, and nine weapons to pick from! The recommended load-out is one slow weapon, one fast weapon, and one 'special' weapon, but you're free to experiment with different combinations.

Game play in Garden of Coloured Lights is very basic. You move up, down, left, and right on a two dimensional, constantly scrolling, screen, firing your three weapons. Be warned! The 'slow' and 'special' weapons only recharge as you kill enemies, so if you want your big gun to take down the large ships, you must also constantly destroy smaller ships with your other weapons, even as the screen fills with missiles and rays aiming to destroy you. You keep playing until you run out of lives, struggling to beat your old high score. Nothing fancier than that, but fun, fast-paced, and addictive. It's a great way to kill a few minutes, or a few hours.

Minimum requirements: Windows 2000/ XP/ Vista

JellyCar - Ver 1.1

In this surreal side-scrolling game, you drive a car through a set of courses full of machinery and other hazards.

Luckily, your car is made of jelly, meaning you can squeeze into small spaces and bounce to safety. You can also transform into a bigger car for some situations.

Featuring funny sound effects, a choice of visual styles and a level editor, this is original as well as addictive.

Licence: Free
Minimum requirements: Windows XP/ Vista

Home/Office

Alarm Clock by Tarry91 - Ver: 2.4.0.150

Here are some key features of "Alarm Clock by Tarry91":-

• Unlimited number of events
• Free colour choice
• Save / Load of Settings and events
• Minimise in the system tray
• Count Down Mode
• Open a free file at time
• Shutdown / Restart / Logoff at time
• Playing Music at time
• Repetitions daily and weekly
• Showing your personal message for every event
• Optional start with Windows

Minimum requirements: Windows all

A-PDF Text Extractor - Ver: 1.3.0

A-PDF Text Extractor is an utility designed to extract text from Adobe PDF files for use in other applications. The program is a standalone application. No Adobe Acrobat needed.

To extract text from a PDF file, the PDF file must meet the following conditions:
- The file is formatted to contain text and not just images.
- The file contains no security restrictions which disable text selecting.

A-PDF Text Extractor will help you easily get the text from a PDF file.

NOTE: Text formatting may be lost after extracting from the original PDF file.

Minimum requirements: Windows all

ContactKeeper - Ver: 1.4.2

ContactKeeper is a personal database system designed to store contact information about your friends, family, colleagues,... at one central place.

ContactKeeper is a free personal information manager with an integrated birthday reminder, who keeps you informed about upcoming birthdays.

ContactKeeper is consciously very flexible and simple, there are only a few fields, in the course of which an unlimited quantity of numbers and e-mail addresses can be stored for each person, extra information can be put in the note field.

The most important functions of ContactKeeper are the birthday calendar, quick and easy navigation, an extensive search function, export to (x)html or to a text file and of course the birthday reminder.

Minimum requirements: Windows all

Doro PDF Writer - Ver: 1.42

Doro PDF Writer lets you create a coloured PDF file from any windows program. The Setup contains all what you need for creating pdf files. After installation you have an additional printer called 'Doro PDF Writer'.

• Simply start Microsoft Word.
• Write your document, also coloured pictures can be included.
• Select on the print dialog the printer labeled 'Doro PDF Writer' and press 'OK'.
• On the Doro window which appears after that, you can specify some additional options.
• Press 'Create'.

Minimum requirements: Windows all

LifeSaver - Ver: 1.0.3288

At the surface, it's Yet Another Diary/Journal Application.

But a fundamental problem with all Diary software is that the data is locked into a proprietary datastore and format. This is absolutely antithetical to the purpose of a diary: long-term tracking of thoughts. At some point in the future, our current applications and the format in which they store the data will be obsolete; it's imperative that something like this be easily extractable, in a way that can be imported into future systems.

Features

• Entries formatted in rich text (HTML to facilitate export)
• Password-protected datastore (not cryptographically strong, but should be enough to keep out your little brother)
• Multiple entries allowed per day
• Browse next/previous entry
• Export to XML

Minimum requirements: Windows all/ .NET Framework

Photocopier - Ver: 3.04

Photocopier is one of those 'so obvious in retrospect' programs.

Photocopier is one of those 'so obvious in retrospect' programs. You plonk paper on your scanner, you hit the 'copy' button on the photocopier program, and it automagically scans your document and sends it to your printer! No scan, save, open, print hassle - point and click all the way.

You have the basic options - number of copies, brightness - but nothing else, and that's, as Martha says, a good thing. This is a simple quick-n-dirty utility, not a massive image manipulation suite.

Minimum requirements: Windows 9x/ Me/ NT/ 2000/ XP/ Vista/ Printer/ Twain compliant scanner

SimpleD Budget - Ver: 1.05

Can you picture your home finances? This free budgeting program is ideal for those who like to see their monthly budget at a glance.

Minimum requirements: Windows XP/ Vista

Tiny USB Office - Ver: 1.0

Tiny USB Office, which replaces the former FloppyOffice package, is an improved version of the small, portable productivity software suite which offers a collection of unique standalone free software applications.

If you find yourself working on different machines and like the idea of having portable software that you can access hassle-free from any computer, then this is the package for you. Whether you need to create rich-text word processing documents, share files across multiple computers, transfer files, create MS Excel compatible spreadsheets, comma-delimited database files, email your contacts, talk to your friends or co-workers on MSN, create pdf files, or securely encrypt or delete files - this is the perfect software package for you!

Tiny USB Office features all of these programs, which are accessible with one click with the included Qsel portable program launcher software :-

• Database Creation - with CSVed
• Data Encryption - with DScrypt
• Email Client Software - with NPopUK
• File Compression - with 100 Zipper
• File Sharing - with HFS
• File Transfer - with FTP Wanderer
• Flowchart Creation - with EVE Vector Editor
• MSN Messenger Client - with PixaMSN
• Tree-Style Outliner Software - with Mempad
• PDF Creation - with PDF Producer
• Password Recovery - with XPass
• Secure Deletion - with DSdel
• Spreadsheet Creation - with Spread32
• Text Editing - with TedNotepad
• Word Processing - with Kpad
• Program Launching - with Qsel

NOTE: Antivirus false positives.

We have heard that warnings have been received warning about TinyOffice containing virus and trojan activity, flagged by a popular antivirus site, virustotal.com. The false positives seem to be all generated by one of the programs bundled in TinyOffice - HFS file server.

Minimum requirements: Windows 98/ 98SE/ 2000/ XP/ Vista

Internet

µTorrent - Ver: 1.8.1

Most of the features present in other BitTorrent clients are present in µTorrent, including bandwidth prioritisation, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT (compatible with BitComet).

Minimum requirements: Windows all

Beerwin's PlainHtml - Ver: 6.1.1

Beerwin's PlainHtml is a powerful HTML source editor with PHP tool buttons, many JavaScript and HTML snippets and complete HTML, PHP and CGI reference.

All this is completed with an Extender which provides the possibility of extending the main program.

Here are some key features of "Beerwin's PlainHtml":

• MDI
• Save/reload window lists (Save your opened documents' list and reload those documents by two clicks)
• Single instance (PlainHTML is started only once)
• Window list dialog (for faster document switching)
• Full drag and drop support (accepts files dropped everywhere on it's window, text can be dragged&dropped between document windows)
• Application-level Double edit protection (a document cannot be opened twice or more)
• Integrated IE preview (With double screen support)
• Configurable toolbars
• Configurable editor
• Preview from local host
• PHP error check (needs php and web server installed)
• HTML validation
• Tag wizards
• Built-in HTML templates (with update possibility - Extender)
• Table layouts (with update possibility - Extender)
• Code Snippets
• References
• Quick tag insertion from the Side Bar
• Tool buttons for most of HTML tags
• Syntax Highlighting
• Full entity list
• Colour picker with 5 colour sets + Custom palette with save-reload function

Minimum requirements: Windows all

Core FTP Lite - Ver: 2.1 Build 1591

A free FTP Client with SSL/TLS, SSH/SFTP, dragdrop, resume/retry, proxy/socks/firewall .

Minimum requirements: windows all

Sandboxie - Ver: 3.34

Sandboxie requires neither the disabling nor blocking of functions available to Web sites through the browser. Instead, Sandboxie isolates and quarantines the outcome of whatever the Web site may do to your computer, including the installation of unsolicited software.

There is no trade-off of functionality for security: the Web site can use the full range of active content tools, and if it uses these tools maliciously to install software or otherwise make changes in your computer, then these changes can be easily undone.

Sandboxie has originally been designed to increase the security of browsing with Internet Explorer, however it is just as effective with any other browser, and in fact, any other program. Sandboxie wraps a protection layer around the programs it supervises. It is this layer that intercepts and isolates any changes the programs make to the computer. And this layer is impartial to the specific program it wraps.

Sandboxie is software that allows you isolate and quarantine a web site.

When you browse the web, changes occur to your computer system. Most of the time these changes are harmless, like recording the addresses of web sites you have visited (and when), so the browser can help you complete a web address that you type in. Whether these changes are harmless or harmful, they do in fact happen to your computer system.

When you use Sandboxie to protect your browsing session, it catches all these changes just as the browser is about to apply them into your computer system. Sandboxie does record these changes on behalf of the browser, but it records them in a special isolated folder, called the sandbox.

The benefit of having a sandbox is that it ensures your ability to get rid of all changes done by the browser, simply by deleting the sandbox folder.

Another useful feature of Sandboxie is the ability to terminate all sandboxed programs at once. As some web sites tend to pop up three new browser windows for each one you close, you can have Sandboxie close all of them with a click of a button.

You may use Sandboxie free of charge for any length of time that you desire. However, if you use Sandboxie for more than 30 days, the software will occasionally remind you to consider paying the registration fee. By doing that, you would show your support for further development and improvement of Sandboxie.

By paying the registration fee of $20 US-dollars you get a life-time registration key to this and and all upcoming versions of the Sandboxie product.

Minimum requirements: Windows 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista

Tidy Favourites - Ver: 3.53

If you're not happy with Firefox's favourites manager, and want a visual way to manage your bookmarks, consider Tidy Favourites This one download is a Firefox and Internet Explorer add-in, and displays thumbnails of your favourites inside a Firefox tab.

You can easily copy, delete, and update them, drag and drop them inside the tab, resize them, rearrange them, and quickly search through them all.

One of the program's nicer touches is that the thumbnails refresh themselves, so that you can see not just a static thumbnail, but one that displays the current information on the page. Also useful is that you can share your favourites among Firefox and Internet Explorer. Use it in one browser, and the favourites you add with be available in the other browser as well. You can also install a portable version that you can install on a USB flash drive. In that way, you can use the same favourites on different PCs.

All that being said, this program is not for everyone. I found it more difficult, not easier, to manage my favourites with it, because the thumbnails quickly overwhelm the screen, and the screen quickly gets cluttered. Still, if you like to manage things visually, it might be what you want.

When you install it, its features become accessible via buttons in Firefox and Internet Explorer. But this buttons might not be visible. If you can't find it in Firefox, restart Firefox, select View-->Toolbars-->Customise, and drag the program's icons to the Firefox toolbar. In Internet Explorer if they're not visible, click the double-arrow at the far right of the toolbar, and you should see them.

Minimum requirements: Windows 2000/ XP/ Vista

Top Dawg HTML Editor - Ver: 2.8

Top Dawg is a built as a full featured HTML Editor which supports tables, style sheets, drag and drop links etc.

Here are some key features of "Top Dawg HTML Editor":-

• Style sheet Support
• Frames Support
• Forms Support
• Ability to open multiple files at once( up to 9 currently)
• Built in FTP Client
• Built in Colour Picker
• Menu item on Tools Menu to open Windows Explorer from within Top Dawg
• FTP transfer of multiple files at one time.
• Built in HTML file viewer. (does not require that the file be saved, does not open your browser, the ability to view with your browser will still be available.)
• View files with IE, Netscape, or default browser
• Virtually unlimited file size. (limited by system resources only)
• Improved Search, and Search and Replace
• Multilevel Undo and Redo (Up to 256 levels on each open file).
• Editor supports Drag and Drop Editing and type over as well as insert.
• Preview of .jpg, .gif, .png, .au, .mid, and .wav files with default viewer
• Custom tab with 10 User Customisable buttons.
• Over 250% improvement in scroll speed (very helpful with older machines).

Minimum requirements: Windows all

Multi Media

AnvSoft Photo Flash Maker Professional - Ver: 4.85

AnvSoft Photo Flash Maker is a Flash album creator, Flash to Slide show Maker to create elegant flash photo slide show for sharing on a Web site, Blog, Myspace and more. It can easily make an animated photo slide show with SWF file as the output format.

AnvSoft Photo Flash Maker is the ideal tool to create a slide show widget which you can share your memorable moments with your family or friends on your own homepage, post on your Blog or upload to your own web site. It can burn slide the show on CD or DVD disc playable on computer and save original photos on CD/DVD disc. Photo Flash Maker also supports file upload.

With AnvSoft Photo Flash Maker, you can easily transform your digital photo collection to Macromedia Flash file format (SWF), turn a folder full of still images into a stunning Flash slide show presentation with background music and special transition effects. This Flash animate builder tool can be used to build Flash album for web site., image scroll banner, decorate your photos on MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, etc.

Minimum requirements: Windows all

Data Crow - Ver: 3.4.7

Data Crow is a music (audio CD's and mp3, ogg, flac, ape, .. files), book, software and movie cataloguer.

Data Crow is platform independent and easy to install. Data Crow will use internet services like imdb.com, amazon.com and freedb.org to retrieve information.

Data Crow is an open source project developed by Robert Jan van der Waals. The project began in 2002 under the name "CD Library". After further development, CD Library was deemed to be an obsolete name because it no longer reflected the program's functionality and the project was renamed Data Crow.

For those who like to collect software, books, movies and or music, Data Crow can help! The program needs only a little input from you to register your collection.

For example, registering a piece of software is as easy as inputting the software's name or publisher and Data Crow retrieves the rest of the information from Amazon. For audio files, it's even simpler!

Just browse to the directory that contains the audio files and Data Crow reads and imports the embedded tag information (artist, album name, track name, and so on).

Here are some key features of "Data Crow":

• An User Manual
• Internal help system (activated by the F1 key)
• Nice-looking and easy-to-use interface
• Platform-independent (including the database)
• Software registration
• Audio CD registration
• Music files registration
• Movie registration
• Book registration
• Reporting
• Amazon.com support
• Imdb support
• Freedb support
• Imports information from CD or your hard disk
• Extracts information from music files (including the tag content of OGG, FLAC, APE and MP3 files)
• Supports parsing for DivX, Xvid, ASF, MKV, OGM, RIFF, MOV, IFO, VOB and Mpeg video
• Hide fields, Update All values, etc
• SQL query tool, for expert users
• Highly customisable!
• No frills HSQL database, no need for ODBC-JDBC bridge drivers

Minimum requirements: Windows all

MPlayer for Windows 2009 - Ver: 1.2

The MPlayer for Windows package contains the most recent builds of MPlayer for the Windows platform as well as SMPlayer and MPUI .

MPlayer for Windows provides native support for more than 192 Video and 85 Audiocodecs.

For maximum performance, the installer includes optimised builds for different CPU types. Furthermore the Full-Package includes the Binary Codec Package, while the Light-Package does not.

Package contents:

• MPlayer for Win32, SVN-r25803 (2008-01-19)
• SMPlayer front-end by RVM, v0.5.62 (SVN-r693)
• MPUI front-end by Martin Fiedler, v1.2-pre3 (Build 38)
• Binary Codec Package for MPlayer (2007-10-07)
• Installer created with NSIS, v2.34

Note:The great news is that the package now contains the "SMPlayer" front-end. Of course good old MPUI is still included. While the full package contains MPUI and SMPlayer, the light package is limited to MPUI.

Here are some key features of "MPlayer for Windows (Full Package)":

• The award-winning OpenSource Media Player "MPlayer" available for Windows now!
• Self-contained "all-in-one" installer (made with NSIS)
• More than 192 Video- und 85 Audiocodecs supported natively! (-> details)
• Latest optimised MPlayer builds by Celtic Druid
• Improved version of MPUI front-end (compiled with Delphi7 Professional)
• Binary Codec Package for Windows (included in Full-Package only)
• Full multi-language Unicode support (more than 20 languages to choose)
• Optimised builds for: Athlon-XP, Athlon-64, Core 2, Pentium-4, Pentium-4 Precott, Pemtium-M
• Generic build that runs on all CPUs (Runtime Detection)

Minimum requirements: Windows all

Pixelformer - Ver: 0.9.6.2 RC2

With its predictability and subpixel precision you can easily create professional quality icons and bitmaps.

The Pixelformer application was designed to be an advanced icon editor that will give you full control over every pixel of your images. With its predictability and subpixel precision you can easily create professional quality icons and bitmaps.

Here are some key features of "Pixelformer" :-

Support for different colour depths up to 32-bit RGB with alpha channel:
Using Pixelformer, you always work in 32-bit RGBA colour space. Just tag image with desired output colour depth, and Pixelformer will generate appropriate palette, preview, and data for export.

Lossless target colour depth switching:
Because working colour space is always 32-bit RGBA, it is enough to switch the "target colour format" option when you need to change colour depth of the resulting image. All image data will remain unchanged.

Semi-transparent colours:
In addition to semi-transparent layers and semi-transparent drawing, Pixelformer allows you to use semi-transparent colours, offering you more control over transparency effects.

Free-form masking:
Using the selection tools, you can create a region of arbitrary form and use it as a mask constraining the drawing area or as a selection for image manipulation.

Multiple layer support:
Any image in a Pixelformer project can consist of unlimited number of layers. The layering greatly simplifies composition of complex images.

In-place supersampling:
With Pixelformer you can draw at a much higher resolution than that of the output image - the drawing will be instantly resampled and mapped to the output. This method combines the benefits of raster and vector graphics and gives you antialiased but still editable image, which can never be produced by classic 1:1 raster editors.
The supersampling also helps to convert photos to icons by simplifying the edge trimming process and retaining a possibility to refine the result and align it to the pixel grid.

Dynamic palette generation:
While creating non-truecolour images in Pixelformer, there is no need to worry about available colour set - a highly optimised palette and corresponding preview are automatically generated in real time.

Multiple file format support:
Currently Pixelformer supports BMP, PNG, PSD, TGA, JPEG, ICO and CUR file formats as well as EXE, DLL and ICL multiple image containers.

Plugin extensible architecture:
The support for different file formats can be extended using appropriate plugins. The SDK will be available shortly.

Icon extraction capability:
Pixelformer is able to extract icons, cursors and bitmaps from executable files and ICL icon libraries.

PNG size optimisation:
Pixelformer contains a PNG optimizer, which finds optimal PNG compressor parameters during export, and thus losslessly minimizes size of the PNG image file.

Vista icon optimisation:
Because Vista icons contain PNG-compressed subimages, the PNG optimising engine reduces the icon file sizes as well.

Alpha premultiplication:
When necessary, images containing an alpha channel can be exported from Pixelformer with premultiplied alpha.

Deep undo buffer:
Pixelformer efficiently compresses undo data, keeping for you long history of operations while maintaining low memory usage.

Minimum requirements: Windows all

SMPlayer - Ver: 0.6.6

SMPlayer uses the award-winning MPlayer as the engine, so it's able to play the most known audio & video formats without any need of external codecs: avi, mkv, ogm, mpeg, vob, 3gp, asf, mov, wmv, mp3, ogg... You can also play DVD discs and Internet streams.

Special care have been taken with subtitles. It supports srt, sub, ssa, embedded subtitles in Matroska files, DVD subtitles...
SMPlayer subtitles can be very nice, you can choose font and size, and even colours for the subtitles.

One of the most interesting features of SMPlayer: it remembers the settings of all files you play. So you start to watch a movie but you have to leave... don't worry, when you open that movie again it will resume at the same point you left it, and with the same settings: audio track, subtitles, volume...

Here are some key features of "SMPlayer :-

• Audio track switching. You can choose the audio track you want to listen. Works with avi and mkv. And of course with DVD's.
• Seeking by mouse wheel. You can use your mouse wheel to go forward or backward in the video.
• Video equalizer, allows you to adjust the brightness, contrast, hue, saturation and gamma of the video image.
• Multiple speed playback. You can play at 2X, 4X... and even in slow motion.
• Filters. Several filters are available: deinterlace, post processing, denoise... and even a karaoke filter (voice removal).
• Audio and subtitles delay adjustment. Allows you to sync audio and subtitles.
• Advanced options, such as selecting a demurer or video & audio codecs.
• Playlist. Allows you to enqueue several files to be played one after each other. Autorepeat and shuffle supported too.
• Preferences dialog. You can easily configure every option of SMPlayer by using a nice preferences dialog.
• Translations: SMPlayer is fully translated into Spanish and German.
• Free and opensource.

Minimum requirements: Windows all

Registry

AML Free Registry Cleaner - Ver: 4.14

AML Free Registry Cleaner is Registry-cleaning software.

Minimum requirements: Windows 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista

Security

Identity Finder Free Edition - Ver: 3.5.2

Let us prove to you the power of our search capabilities for free. Simply download, install, and run the search.

Minimum requirements: Windows 2000/ XP/ vista

MSKeyViewer Plus - Ver: 2.0.5

MSKeyViewer Plus is a small utility to retrieve Microsoft product installation keys and service pack levels and display them in a list to be kept in case of key loss and/or the need to reinstall software.

Minimum requirements: Windows 9x/ Me/ 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista

Quttera - Ver: 0.2.1.0.51

You have anti-virus program on you computer but in spite of it your data and multimedia files still got infected? If so, we have excellent news for you. Take control of your data and multimedia files with Quttera!

Quttera implements patent pending algorithm capable of detection "zero day" malicious threats without any prior information (threat signature) identifying detected malware.

Quttera's investigation mechanism does not rely on any signatures database but either on fully heuristic and signatureless detection method which is able to detect existence of "zero-day" software vulnerability exploits into computer information and media files before they compromise the hosted computer.

Quttera is intended to investigate any data and multimedia files and detect hidden shellcodes and malware. Detection of these security threats will defend you from viruses, trojans, backdoors, spyware and malware distributed into documents and multimedia files.

Quttera is not just another anti-virus program. Quttera was designed to be a signature-free malware detection system intended to recognise shellcodes and other malware hidden in music files, movies files, picture files, computer media files, electronic documents, text files and any other types of data and multimedia files.

Quttera provides you an opportunity to detect suspicious documents and multimedia files before they compromise operating system, programs, documents and multimedia files located on your computer.

Minimum requirements: Windows XP / Vista

Utilities

AkelPad - Ver: 4.1.3

Notepad is a wonderful editor, being used to edit files in plain text format, thus it is irreplaceable for designing of Web documents, programming, and so on.

However, the one comprised in Windows, is very inconvenient due to several limitations. This program claims to be able to fill up these drawbacks.

Attention: this program takes a lot of advantages from Unicode representation. It is strongly recommended that you set up TrueType font (as Courier New) to gain more advantages from this feature.

Minimum requirements: Windows all

AllDup - Ver: 2.0.7

AllDup is a freeware tool for searching and removing file duplicates on your computer. The fast search algorithm find duplicates of any file type, e.g., text, pictures, music or movies.

• Freeware for private and commercial use
• Fast search algorithm
• Find duplicates with a combination of the following criteria: file content, file name, file extension, file dates, file attributes!
• Search is performed in multiple specified folders, drives, media storage's, CD/DVD's...
• Search through an unlimited number of files and folders
• Search for duplicates of music and video files
• Search for duplicates of digital photo files
• Search for duplicates of executable and any other files
• Entire folders or individual files can be excluded from the search by masks or size conditions
• The built-in file viewer allows you to preview many different file formats and analyse the content of the file before deciding what to do with it
• Ignore the ID3 tags of MP3 files
• Convenient search result list
• Many flexible options help you to select unnecessary duplicates automatically
• The unnecessary duplicates can be deleted permanently or copied/moved to a folder of your choice
• Save and restore the search result for continue working later
• Export the search result to TXT or CSV file
• Create shortcuts or hard links to the last original file
• For your safety all files that have to be deleted can be moved to the Recycle Bin or a separate backup folder

Minimum requirements: Windows 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista

AutoMz Ultimate Tweaker - Ver: 5.9

One of the most powerful automatic tweakers available. Are You Tired of Windows "Blue Screens", Computer Crashing Or Real Slow Activity?

AutoMz Ultimate Tweaker is a tool that helps you use your computer at optimum performance.

With a specially designed algorithm, scans your hardware (CPU, RAM, Graphic Card, Hard Disk, CD/DVD, Modem etc.) and your software. Then applies the best values for over 50 powerful tweaks!

Here are some key features of "AutoMz Ultimate Tweaker" :-

• Scan engine (Software-Hardware)
• CPU Tweaks
• HDD Tweaks
• Memory Tweaks
• Graphic Card Tweaks
• CD/DVD Tweaks
• Modem Tweaks
• Internet Tweaks
• Windows Tweaks
• Boot Files Optimisation
• Registry Optimisation
• Temporary Files Clean
• Backup - Restore Service

Minimum requirements: Windows XP/ Vista/ .Net Framework 2.0

EULAlyzer - Ver: 2.0

EULAlyzer can analyse license agreements in seconds, and provide a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases.

Discover if the software you're about to install displays pop-up ads, transmits personally identifiable information, uses unique identifiers to track you, or much much more.

Key Features:
- Discover potentially hidden behaviour about the software you're going to install
- Pick up on things you missed when reading license agreements
- Keep a saved database of the license agreements you view
- Instant results - super-fast analysis in just a second
- EULA Research Centre, which optionally allows users to anonymously submit license agreements they scan to help us to further improve the program, everyone can be a part of the effort to make something that used to be so tedious, so easy.

When installing software, never just click past the license agreement. Pop it into EULAlyzer, and EULAlyzer it!

Minimum requirements: Windows 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista

File and MP3 Renamer - Ver: 5.25

This program is the complete file renaming solution. Rename a single file or work in batch mode for nearly unlimited file operations.

Minimum requirements: Windows all/ Visual Basic 6 Runtime Module

FreeSysInfo - Ver: 1.2

FreeSysInfo allows you to discover system and network information on your local machine or network computer.

Minimum requirements: Windows 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista

HLP Free PC Cleaner - Ver: 1.1.3

HLP Free PC Cleaner is a comprehensive and powerful piece of software designed to scan your computer for common junk files.

Minimum requirements: Windows 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista

Mz Services Manager - Ver: 2.2.1

A simple application that will help you enable or disable services.

Minimum requirements: Windows Vista/ Net Framework 2.0

Process Explorer - Ver: 11.32

Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLL's processes have opened or loaded.

The Process Explorer display consists of two sub-windows. The top window always shows a list of the currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, whereas the information displayed in the bottom window depends on the mode that Process Explorer is in: if it is in handle mode you'll see the handles that the process selected in the top window has opened; if Process Explorer is in DLL mode you'll see the DLL's and memory-mapped files that the process has loaded. Process Explorer also has a powerful search capability that will quickly show you which processes have particular handles opened or DLL's loaded.

The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.

Minimum requirements: Windows XP/ 2003/ Vista

SequoiaView - Ver: 1.3

Ever wondered why your hard disk is full? Or what directory is taking up most of the space? When using conventional disk browsing tools, such as Windows Explorer, these questions may be hard to answer.

Minimum requirements: Windows all

SiSoft Sandra Lite 2009 - Ver: 15.42

SiSoftware Sandra was designed to be a 32 and 64-bit Windows system analyser that includes benchmarking, testing and listing modules. It tries to go beyond other utilities to show you more of what is really going on under the hood so you draw comparisons at both a high and low-level in a single product.

You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, ODBC Connections, USB2, Firewire etc.

You can save/print/fax/e-mail/post/upload or insert into ADO/ODBC databases reports in text, HTML, XML, SMS/DMI or RPT format.

This version supports multiple sources of information gathering including: remote computers, PDA's, Smart Phones, ADO/ODBC databases or saved system reports.

All benchmarks are optimised for both SMP & SMT (Hyper-Threading), up to 32/64 CPUs depending on the platform.

Minimum requirements: Windows XP / 2003 / Vista

Vista Services Optimiser - Ver: 1.1.10.1 Beta 2

Vista Services Optimiser enables you to safely optimise Windows services based on how you use your computer. A standard Vista installation has many services turned on and running that you may not have any use for, consuming CPU and memory that can potentially slow down your system.

Vista Services Optimizer analyses your system and suggest services that can be safely turned off. You can choose to perform an automatic tune-up based on what is suitable for your system, or use a manual tune-up that lets you select from a more detailed list of features that you want to disable. The program does not require any technical knowledge and provides easy to understand checkbox options to tune your system for your personal needs. It also includes a system restore feature that allows you to restore Windows service settings to their defaults at any time.

NOTE: Beta or prerelease software is not intended for inexperienced users, as the software may contain bugs or may potentially damage your system. We strongly recommend that users exercise caution and save all mission-critical data before installing or using this software.

Minimum requirements: Windows Vista/ .NET Framework 3

WinTidy - Ver: 5.0.2

Program to help recover disk space.

Minimum requirements: Windows all

Video

E.M. Free PowerPoint Video Converter - Ver: 2.40

Eufony is a powerful and easy to use software application that deals with almost all your audio and video conversion needs. Manage, Play, Convert, Merge, Split, Burn!

Here are some key features of "E.M. Free PowerPoint Video Converter":

• Managing Audio Files
  
• Helping you to manage audio files by this convenient Explorer-like user interface.
  
• ID3 Tag edit support for MP1,MP2,MP3,WMA,WMV,ASF files.
  
• Copying,cutting,deleting,renaming files,and creating folders.
  
• Sorting by File name,Title,Artist,Length,Type,Quality,Size and Date Modified.
  
• Exporting file list as HTML file.
  
• Finding duplicate files.
  
• Playing Audio File
  
• Supported Audio/Video Formats: MP1/MP2/MP3 in MPEG version 1/2/2.5,WAV (PCM, IMA ADPCM, ALAW, ULAW), WMA, OGG, RA, RM, CDA(CD), AC3, VOB(DVD), AAC, FLAC, AU, AIF, APE, MPC, G721, G726, 3GP, MPG, MOV, WMV, ASF.
  
• Playback modes: repeat,sequence and loop.
  
• Seeking in milliseconds accurately and quickly during playback.
  
• Full support for VBR(XING, VBRI).
  
• Audio Format Conversion , Merging, Splitting and Burning
  
• Input Audio/Video Formats: MP1, MP2, MP3, WAV (PCM, IMA ADPCM, ALAW), WMA, OGG, RA, RM, CDA(CD), AC3, VOB(DVD), AAC, FLAC, AU, AIF, APE, MPC, G721, G726, 3GP, MPG, MOV, WMV, ASF.
  
• Output Audio Formats: MP3, WAV(PCM, IMA ADPCM), AU, AIF, WMA, OGG, APE, FLAC, AAC, M4A, CD.
  
• Full decode and high-quality encode.
  
• Supports VBR MP3 encoding.
  
• Conversion between different sampling rates, bits per sample, stereo/mono channels support.
  
• Supports Volume Normalising.
  
• Batch conversion support.
  
• Auto-rename when save.
  
• Supports file merging & splitting.
  
• Retaining ID3 Tag.
  
• Burring Audio CD.
  

Minimum requirements: Windows 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista

FFDShow MPEG-4 Video Decoder- Ver: 20090125 Rev2633

ffdshow is a set of DirectShow filters and VFW codec for video compression, decompression and processing and audio compression and processing.

You can play almost any movie using ffdshow.

FFDShow uses libavcodec from ffmpeg project or for video decompression (it can use xvid.dll installed with xvid codec too), postprocessing code from mplayer to enhance visual quality of low bitrate movies, and is based on original DirectShow filter from XviD, which is GPL'ed educational implementation of MPEG4 encoder.

Here are some key features of "FFDShow MPEG-4 Video Decoder" :-

• fast video decompression using optimised MMX, SSE and 3DNow! code
• support for different codecs: XviD, all DivX versions, MS WMV, MPEG-1 and - MPEG-2
• image postprocessing for higher playback quality
• automatic quality control: automatically reduces postprocessing level when CPU load is high
• hue, saturation and luminance correction
• experimental sharpening filter
• noising (of course if you want it)
• presets
• completely free software: ffdshow is distributed under GPL
• support for various subtitle formats

Minimum requirements: windows all