Monthly Disk December 2008

Freeware

Audio

1by1 - Ver: 1.65

Windows Media Player and iTunes are great programs, but they do a lot more than simply play audio. That results in heavy disk footprints and - especially with iTunes - slow loading.

If you're looking to do a 180 and go with the quickest-booting, least resource-hungry application you can find, that would be 1by1. This audio player is a mere 115KB download and imposes an only slightly larger 120KB disk footprint.

Simplicity personified, 1by1's interface is the familiar Explorer-type window with a directory tree and viewing pane. The background colour is blue, and there's a toolbar with small icons that let you play, pause, search, etc. -but otherwise it's that with which all Windows users should be familiar. Basically, you browse to the folder with the tunes you want to play, press play, and 1by1 will render all the tunes in the folder/directory (hence its secondary "The Directory Player" title). It's great for people who have a well-organized collection and like to play entire albums.

1by1 lacks the library functions for sorting by artist, album, etc. that makes programs like iTunes so appealing to many users who don't know how to organise files on disk. There are, however, playlist functions so you can play tunes from multiple directories. Surprisingly for program so lightweight, there's also a three-band EQ with adjustable centre frequencies as well as an audio enhancer (think WMP's SRS WOW) on hand.

As installed, the player handles only MP3 files using Windows XP/Vista's built-in codec, or the mpglib.dll if present. But you can
grab free Winamp plugins to add support for WMA, OGG, FLAC etc. 1by1 is ideal for super light Windows installations like you'll find on netbooks, or for the minimalists amongst us.

Minimum requirements: Windows XP/ Vista

Backups

Karen's Replicator - Ver: 3.6.2

Automatically backup files, directories, even entire drives! Karen's Replicator copies selected files from one drive/folder to another. Source and Destination folders can reside anywhere on your network.

Files larger than 2 GB are supported.

Options include repeated copies at intervals as short as a few minutes, or as long as several months, copy only files that have changed, and the replication of file deletions.

New features allow you to specify which files should not be copied, and also which days a file should be skipped.

Minimum requirements: Windows all

Desktop

Acer Gridvista - Ver: 2.60.1211

This application makes more effective use of large monitors by dividing them into sections where you can place your windows.

Acer Gridvista divides your screen into two, three or four sections in which you can drag & drop windows. The windows will then be automatically resized. You can also set a window to be always on top or semi-transparent.

Minimum requirements: Windows all

AltMove Manager - Ver: 2.1.4

It adds new functionality to your mouse, there's little to learn, and it's free.

AltMove Manager is a mouse and desktop enhancement manager that can move and resize windows that are locked, grab a screenshot, and magnify a window under the mouse. You can easily add a few others through the Actions menu.

As an executable, the application doesn't need to be installed - just run the executable for the shortcuts to be in place. The regular settings include some standard program options for running the executable at start-up and keeping it on top. Advanced settings let you move back and forth with a combination of left and right mouse buttons, limiting shortcuts to within a certain range or certain time interval. Tool tips will help you stay on top of what this powerful little application can do.

Minimum requirements: windows NT/ 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista

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/ Vista

Greenfish Icon Editor Pro - Ver: 1.6

Greenfish Icon Editor Pro has a simple, straightforward interface, and it's free. These are two big points in its favour. With all the typical paint tools (like Wand and Eyedropper) and the ability to pull icons from executable files, Greenfish Icon Editor Pro is a fast, easy way to edit or create custom icons.

Icon Editor Pro also supports animated icons, such as moving cursors. The way Icon Editor Pro goes about animation is a little non-intuitive. It's page-based, meaning you have to create a new page for each frame of the animation. A quick trip through the Help file and a few minutes of practice, and anyone can get the hang of this feature, though.

Icon Editor Pro also has several advanced image filters, a wonderful bonus for a free program. The ability to perform simple image tasks like blurring and sharpen means that your custom icons can look professional.

If you're unsatisfied with the stock icons in your favourite software, or want a custom overhaul of your Windows desktop, give this one a spin. It won't cost you anything to try it.

ReminderCube - Ver: 3.5

ReminderCube is a desktop calendar with many functions.

sPrint - Ver: 2.0

sPrint is a screen capture utility.

TimeSync - Ver: 2.10

TimeSync gets the current time from a NIST server, and adjusts the PC clock if necessary. Accuracy is usually within a second.

Time and date are displayed according to the user's regional settings.
TimeSync will try alternative servers, in case the time cannot be obtained from the preferred server.

Option /auto is provided to run TimeSync from the StartUp folder. In this mode the TimeSync window will not show if the clock offset is under a given minimum.

Settings (click on arrow):

• Minimum clock offset for adjustment (default 2 seconds)
• Minimum clock offset for notification in /auto mode (default 3 seconds)
• Time check delay in /auto mode

TrayEverything - Ver: 1.2

Have you ever found your toolbar full of programs, and asked yourself why a program doesn't disappear into the tray? Or, have you ever wanted a program to disappear, becoming invisible to everyone except you?

Thanks to TrayEverything this can be done with two simple clicks! The main window shows a list of the currently opened programs with their associated windows, from which you can minimise to tray every window. You can also choose not to show any icon in the system tray, and to hide the selected window with a password, to keep your "work" secret!

Features

• You can minimise to tray ANY window
• You can completely hide the window, that is, no icon in the tray
• You can hide the window and protect it with a password
• You can group icons of the same application in one single icon - let's not overfill the tray too!
• You have FIVE different ways to minimise an application into tray:
• Double click on the window's caption in the TrayEverything main window
• TrayEverything can add a new button in the title bar of each window to minimise it

Digital Imaging

Image Composite Editor - Ver: 1.0

Microsoft Image Composite Editor is an advanced panoramic image stitcher.

• State-of-the-art stitching algorithms
• Advanced orientation adjustment view
• Exposure blending
• Output in many formats:
• HD View
• Silverlight Deep Zoom
• TIFF, JPEG, PNG, and more

ShiftN - Ver: 3.3

ShiftN is a useful little freebie that does exactly as it's advertised to do: It swiftly corrects architectural perspective distortion. This sort of distortion is common in photos of buildings, when your perspective from ground level results in converting lines in a photograph.

Just fire up the program, load a file, and click "Automatic correction." You see one version of the corrected photo the left, and a version with correction lines superimposed on the right. If you don't like what you see, you can click individual lines on the right-hand version to turn off selected corrections, or just click the Re-optimise button for another try. Still not happy? Click "Adjust correction" to fine-tune the settings. When you're happy with the results, either select File, Save As to choose your own name, or File, Save Results to automatically save a version with "ShiftN" added to the file name. Alternatively, you could click "Save and exit."

You could use an image editing program like Corel Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop to correct perspective distortion yourself, but that is relatively tricky to accomplish. And you have the added step of needing to crop your photo afterward, since these fixes invariably warp the photo out of its rectangular shape. ShiftN not only fixes the distortion, but it also handles the cropping for you.

ShiftN should be in any casual photographer's toolbox. It's very simple to use and produces nice results.

Wiseval Photophant - Ver: 1.0

Wiseval Photophant is a free software for batch resizing, converting and renaming images or your digital photos from and to jpg, bmp, png and gif formats.

• 100% Free. No spyware, adware, banners etc.
• Resize, rename and convert images in batch mode
• Supports jpeg, png, gif, and bmp formats
• Variable options and settings for advanced users
• Built-in templates: iPod, iPhone, Facebook, DVD etc.
• Configurable compression / resolution ratio
• Load / save settings and image lists
• Very fast preview and image processing
• Clean, easy to use interface
• Small installation file ~ 2MB

Licence: Free
Minimum requirements: Windows 9x/ NT/ 2000/ XP/ Vista

Email

Email Monitor - Ver: 2.1

Monitors all outgoing emails from your computer and alerts you whenever an unauthorised or unknown program (virus, keylogger, spyware etc.) is trying to send an email in the background.

EPrompter - Ver: 2.0

There are so many free Web-based e-mail programs available - Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and others - that many people use multiple ones.

That's certainly useful, but it can be painful as well. It means manually checking each account multiple times throughout the day - a productivity-killer, if there ever was one.

EPrompter solves the problem neatly. It automatically checks all of your Web-based e-mail automatically every 15 minutes, and alerts you when any has new mail. You'll be able to do this for up to 16 different accounts. In addition, you don't even have to log into the different Web-based mail systems in order to see your inbox, read your messages, and respond to them--you can do all of that from directly within the program. You can also delete mail as well.

There may be problems getting Hotmail to work with this software. On one occasion, if the program was identified as Live-mail it worked, but another time it wouldn't work even when that was done. So you may have some setup problems with Hotmail. On the other hand, it's free -and it works fine with other Web-based mail, so it's certainly worth a try.

NOTE: Vista Users are advised to install this program by right clicking on the exe file and run as Administrator.

Minimum requirements: Windows 98/ Me/ NT/ 2000/ XP/ Vista

gAttach - Ver: 1.2008.9

Because Gmail is Web-based, it suffers from one very annoying problem: It doesn't integrate with Windows. So you can't just right-click a file to send it via Gmail, as you can with most desktop e-mail clients.

gAttach solves the problem. Install the software, and from then on, whenever you right click a file an choose Send To -->Mail Recipient, it will create an e-mail in Gmail and attach the file to it. You then open Gmail (if you haven't already done so), finish creating the message, and send it on its way.

You can set the program up to either log you in automatically whenever you attach a file, or instead have you log in yourself manually via your browser. It's much easier and convenient to have the program log you in automatically.

If you run into problems with the program, it may be that you haven't set Gmail to be your default e-mail application. To fix the problem, go to gAttach's options screen, click the Computer & Internet tab, and click the "Make Default" button. If that doesn't solve your problem, go to gAttach's FAQ for more help.

NOTE: This program is free/donationware for personal use. Business users must buy a license.

Entertainment

Movienizer - Ver: 1.8

One of the big trends lately is borrowing the data on the Internet, taking a bit from Column A and a bit from Column B. Movienizer is a powerful program which searches the Net to give you a leg up in documenting your movie collection.

Much like EMDB, it connects to online databases to download information about a movie. You enter the title (Star Wars, for example), and it shows possible matches--pick the one you really want (the original, where Han shot first!), and it then gets all the pertinent data. And some pictures. And a whole lot more.

Movienizer isn't limited to one database, though. It comes with a huge built-in list of movie sites, and for those of you with eclectic tastes who enjoy watching grainy six-hour black-and-white films about people dying slowly of consumption, it includes many foreign language sites as well.

NOTE: This program is donationware. It is free to try, but the author accepts and encourages donations towards further development.

Screamer Radio - Ver: 0.4.2

There is little reason to listen to commercial FM radio anymore, it is an old medium that provides little choice of music and is saturated with advertisements.

For the last couple of years there has been an alternative, streaming internet radio. An alternative that has been somewhat complicated to use.

Screamer Radio attempts to remedy this problem by bringing most of the required steps into a single, easy to use, freeware program.

Why to use Screamer Radio:

• It's easy to use
• It's not bloated
• It's ad free
• It has no spyware
• It has a huge database of radio stations
• It has a cool peak meter
• You can easily record what you're listening to
• You can hide it in the system tray
• You can play back on multiple soundcards
• .. and it's free!

• Shoutcast and Icecast MP3 Streaming
• Icecast OGG Vorbis Streaming
• WMA Streaming
• AAC Streaming
• Recording Features
• Recording buffer: start recording in the middle and still save the entire song!
• Direct MP3 Audio stream saving, no loss of quality!
• Direct OGG Vorbis stream saving, no loss of quality!
• Or encode OGG Vorbis as MP3 using Lame
• Encode WMA or AAC to MP3 using Lame

Games

Mouse Trap - Ver: 1.1.0

In this game you need to trap the mouse and prevent it from escaping.

Prezzie Hunt - Ver: 3.0

Easy to play 3D game set in a snowy village environment inhabited by Snowmen, Penguins and Fairies.

Home/Office

Household Register 2009 - Ver: 6.11

Household Register for Windows helps you organise and manage a detailed list of everything you own.

OpenOffice - Ver: 3.0

OpenOffice is a free fully fledged office application suite, complete with a word processor, spreadsheet, database and presentation graphics program.

OpenOffice is a suite of office software, including a fully featured word processor, spreadsheet, database and presentation graphics program that are all compatible with Microsoft Office, along with an HTML editor, a maths and a drawing package. You can also export as the free open office document format, which is compatible with other office suites such as Lotus Symphony Suite.

This is the official release of OpenOffice 3. The most immediately visible change to OpenOffice.org 3.0 is the new "Start Centre" , new fresh-looking icons, and a new zoom control in the status bar. Other highlights include Notable Calc improvements, including a new solver component; support for spreadsheet collaboration through workbook sharing; and an increase to 1024 columns per sheet. Writer has an improved notes feature and displays of multiple pages while editing. There are numerous Chart enhancements, and an improved crop feature in Draw and Impress.

Print2PDF - Ver: 8.0.08.1007

Turn almost any savable file into a PDF using Print2PDF. Like similar programs, this useful utility installs as a print driver, allowing the user to specify settings such as fonts and image-compression quality inside the print dialog of the other applications.

Users can encrypt, watermark, or sign a document, and can configure user permissions to print, copy, or change the file. During tests, the output quality and conversion speed both proved quite satisfactory. If you're looking to convert documents into the PDF format, this tool will likely have all the options you need.

Newer features include support for pre press graphics-file exchange, file attachments, and a self-extracting client version. There's a lot here, and it works exceedingly well - sure to appeal to home businesses, small business owners, or anybody who needs a sharp PDF creation tool.

Internet

Babelgum

The free, interactive Internet TV service which offers independent and brand new content, provides an alternative to traditional broadcasters, and personalises the user experience through tag searches and collaborative filtering.

KillCopy - Ver: 2.85

Moyea FLV Downloader - Ver: 1.16.0.17

Moyea FLV Downloader is a high-speed freeware for you to download FLV's from the Internet.

Licence: Free
Minimum requirements: Windows NT/ 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista

NetWorx - Ver: 4.0

NetWorx is a simple and free, yet powerful tool that helps you objectively evaluate your bandwidth situation. You can use it to collect bandwidth usage data and measure the speed of your Internet or any other network connection.
NetWorx can help you identify possible sources of network problems, ensure that you do not exceed the bandwidth limits specified by your ISP, or track down suspicious network activity characteristic of Trojan horses and hacker attacks.

The program allows you to monitor all your network connections or a specific network connection (such as Ethernet or PPP) only. The software also features a system of highly customisable visual and sound alerts. You can set it up to alert you when the network connection is down or when some suspicious activity, such as unusually heavy data flow, occurs. It can also automatically disconnect all dial up connections and shut down the system.

The incoming and outgoing traffic is represented on a line chart and logged to a file, so that you can always view statistics about your daily, weekly and monthly bandwidth usage and dial up duration. The reports can be exported to a variety of formats, such as HTML, MS Word and Excel, for further analysis.

Minimum requirements: windows 98/ Me/ 2000/ XP/ 2003/ Vista

Trillian Basic - Ver: 3.1.11.0

Sometimes it seems that instant messaging drives people further apart rather than bringing them closer. If you use AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), you can't communicate with MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger, for example, and vice versa.

Trillian solves the problem. From one single interface, you can communicate with all the popular instant messengers, including AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, and IRC. And it takes advantage of the unique features of each program, including file transfers and audio chats. It also keeps a message history so you can review all of your messaging, and includes plenty of other nice extras as well.

NOTE: Be aware that when you install Trillian, it can install the Weather Channel's free software for monitoring the weather, as well as the Ask Toolbar for searching. Make sure to uncheck those options if you don't want them installed.

Multi Media

Snow Player - Ver: 0.95

Snow Player is a tiny, fast, stable, reliable, and completely freeware media player.

TubeMaster Plus - Ver: 1.3.1.3

TubeMaster Plus is a freeware which can download multimedia files (such as FLV, MP3, MP4) from all YouTube like Web sites and can save them on your computer.

Security

Cerberus Security Guard - Ver: 2.5

You can quickly toggle important security settings with this efficient tool, but broken English throughout Cerberus Security Guard may hamper your comprehension.

The basic interface of text, tabs, and radio buttons won't win any design awards, so advanced users will quickly figure out all settings. Novices will appreciate that the program's settings are explained in mouse-over dialog boxes. However, some of the dialog boxes read as though a poor English translation program was used.

While many of the settings can be altered through your operating system controls, Cerberus Security Guard gathers the controls into one location. Simple tabs separate settings into five areas: security, services, system, IE/Mozilla, and media player. Most settings can be toggled without restarting your system.

This tool's settings can drastically alter your system; fortunately, Cerberus includes a simple settings backup and restore tool.

It will take all but advanced users some time to study the settings before making changes, but every level of user will find this freeware tool very handy.

ComboFix

Combofix is a general tool that helps the helper cleaning up a Hijackthis log.

It is able to remove some common infections and helps a user detect files that general scanners cannot find. It also lists registry keys such as the key keys, the desktop keys, and other areas where malware hide. The tool has some rootkit detectors too, allowing a helper to see if a rootkit is present on the PC.

NOTE: Below is a link to the tutorial for this program. It is essential to print and then read this document, BEFORE you try and run the program.

This program is not for the inexperienced user.

LastPass - Ver: 1.31

LastPass is a freeware password manager that will surely make your browsing a lot easier and much more secure.

Here are some key features of "lastpass":

Generate strong passwords, knowing you'll only have to remember one.
Log into your favourite web sites with just one click
Access and manage your important data from multiple workstations seamlessly
Share logins with your friends and let others share logins with you

LockCrypt - Ver: 1.85

LockCrypt offers a central location to manage your passwords, accounts, phone numbers and other difficult to remember information.

LockCrypt uses Cipher Block Chaining and AES encryption to scramble the information you enter, making it useless to anyone without the password. Accounts can be exported as XML, CSV or text files.

There´s support for a flat file database or MySQL, so you can use the same account database from multiple locations.

Password Memory 2009

With almost 20 years of experience in the creation of Windows software, CodeAero Technologies now present a product that should be used by anyone who want keep their passwords to themselves.

Password Memory 2009 safely encrypts and manages your passwords and helps you login to web sites in a fast and secure manner. Three different encryption routines (two 256-bit and one 128-bit) are used to secure your login information.

Quickly Secure Your Passwords
Your passwords are encrypted using several different algorithms for maximum security. You can also automatically generate random new passwords with ease.

One-Click Sort & Search
Sorting your database is as easy as clicking a button. When you search, the results are displayed as you type.

Easy & Secure Logins
You can easily copy the login details to the clipboard and insert them in their associated fields. This is not only fast and easy but will secure you from malicious programs such as key-loggers.

Export Your Data (*)
Export your database to XML, HTML, text file and Excel.

Reliability & Speed
Password Memory is built on a solid client/server database which means your collection can grow to virtually any size.

Manage Multiple Collections
You can can create any number of databases and keep them separate.

Wherever You Go
Password Memory can be installed and run from a USB memory stick which means you can safely bring your database wherever you go.

Password Miner - Ver: 1.0

Password Miner is a new idea of Password managers, it keeps your password safe, without the need to remember any of them.

• Completely random generation of passwords. Three optional inputs to create your passwords.
• Four Different password generating options (Capitals, smalls, numbers, and Symbols).
• Passwords generated are up to 1000 characters.
• You don't have to remember the passwords, all you have to do is to enter the master word and keywords and then you will have your password again.
• No need for databases and files, there is no data to be saved. therefore no loss will occur.
• Doesn't need to save any files, so your passwords are completely safe from strangers.
• Easy to use interface. The program has the ability to remember the keywords and usernames.

Utilities

AML Free Registry Cleaner - Ver: 4.11

It will safely clean and repair Windows Registry problems with a few clicks and enable you to enjoy a cleaner and more efficient PC.

Anvir Task Manager - Ver: 5.3.0

Task Manager Free is freeware utility software that gives users a comprehensive set of tools to put them in full control of their computer.

It gives you detailed information about every process that is running, and about applications running automatically on Windows startup including all hidden applications.

• Get full list of applications running automatically on Windows startup including all hidden applications.
• Get all additional information about startup applications.
• Disable/enable, add/delete, edit startup entries.
• Stop or run once again startup application.
• See alert when any new application adds itself to startup.
• Forbid some applications to be added to startup.
• See alert when Internet Explorer home page was changed.
• Get full information about all processes: CPU and memory usage, executable name with full path, priority, work time, user name.
• Get executable file properties, icon and version information.
• Stop many processes with one click.
• Change process priorities.
• Get current information about CPU usage including list of most active programs.
• Get current information about HDD usage.
• Detection and destruction of most propagated viruses.
• Virus database update.
• Minimum usage of system resources.

BIOS Agent - Ver: 3.61

The BIOS Agent will automatically identify your computer's BIOS information.

CommandXpress - Ver: 1.0 Beta

Though the command shell remains the quickest medium for administering a system, achieving that speed requires similar abilities to that of a software programmer.

There are thousands of commands, subcommands, required and un-required switches, specific switch values, switch arrangements, etc that are involved in building commands. Having to make a reference for most steps in building a command also serves as a source of discouragement for most administrators.

CommandXpress serves as an interface between you and the command prompt window. You use CommandXpress to build commands then execute and read the outputs from the command prompt window. Now you can concentrate on the job of system administration instead of the complexities of command syntax.

Forget about switch exclusivity. Forget about typing command help. Forget about the old way of doing command shell administration! Now you have the fastest & easiest way to unleash the power of commands like never before!

CPU-Z - Ver: 1.48

CPU-Z is a freeware utility that provides some information on your CPU :-

• Processor name and vendor.
• Core stepping and process.
• Processor package.
• Processor current core voltage.
• Internal and external clocks, clock multiplier.
• Partial overclock detection.
• Processor features, including supported instructions sets.
• L1 and L2 cache information : location, size, speed, technology.
• Motherboard information : BIOS, chipset, memory, AGP.

Daphne - Ver: 1.37

Daphne is a small (system tray) application for killing, controlling and debugging window's processes.

You can kill a process by dragging the mouse over the windows, by right-clicking the process in the main process list, or by typing its name with the "Kill all by name" command.Daphne is a windows software that control, debug and kill processes.

You can set a any window to be always on top, to be transparent, to be enable, et cetera.

The main window displays a list of currently running process with detailed information about :-

• CPU usage
• Process ID
• Process name
• Full path (and arguments)
• Priority
• Class (Process / Service)
• Current memory usage
• Peek memory usage
• Current swap usage
• Peek swap usage
• Number of threads

Disk Analyser - Ver: 1.1

Disk Analyser is a utility that allows computer owners to analyse hard disk space.

It's easy to use and fast. With just a few clicks of your mouse you can make analysis of the selected drive or directory. Program provides flexible summary and sort functions so that the disk space usage information is readily accessible in a variety of ways.

Benefits, Features :-

• Makes analysis of the selected drive or directory.
• Displays summary by files, directories, type, size, date.
• Sorts items by size, date/time, title, type.
• Finds duplicates.
• Displays graphs.
• Prints reports.

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