WinPenPack - free portable software collection

I love portable software. It means computer Windows programs that does not require installation or un-installation, and are executed on host PC without leaving tracks of their execution neither in the system folders of the Operating system, nor in the registry. They can be run from slave HDD, network, CD or DVD, or USB, as the most mobile storage carrier. In this post, I want to introduce one of the leading Italian Web Sites, providing an excellent source for the free portable applications to its users. Programs are subdivided in categories and executable through a practical menu, analogue to Windows Quick Launch, the winPenPack Launcher. WinPenPack suites are available in the following editions: Flash Essential, Flash 1Gb, Flash School, Flash Web and Flash Game.

Besides WinPenPack application, Web Site presents a respectable collection of the X-Softwares, are created and developed by winPenPack Team. Each X-Software is composed by a launcher, X-Launcher, that allow to modify program startup options for originally non portable programs to make them portable, through an .ini configuration file. X-Softwares, X-Launchers and .ini files created for portabilize programs are exclusive work of winPenPack development Team, and constitute integrant part of winPenPack.
Highly recommended for all computer freaks!!!

Access the Web Site software downloading section through the link: http://www.winpenpack.com/main/download.php

Virtual Telescope from Microsoft at your Home

How often do look up on the sky? No, not for the weather verification, to check if the rain should be expected, but just because. What was the last time you looked at the stars? Probably, long ago, in your childhood...

Get ready, gray-haired romantics and all inquisitive users of the Internet and computers. You will be delighted with the new utility developed by Microscope. Worldwide Telescope (WWT) is the virtual telescope, offering surprisingly real pictures of space based on the collection of images collected by different world-wide observatories and also by space telescope Hubble. The project development took long 16 years of the critical scientific research. In the memory of Jim Gray, the authors of the Microsoft Research project announced that the utility is absolutely free for all users.

WWT users are able to "travel" throughout the galaxy, closely viewing the planets of our solar system from different perspectives and observing its structures in the X-ray spectrum. Or, if you prefer to inspect your Mother Earth, you can take on its surface by the eyes of astronauts, or study the panorama of another city, seen from space.

At present, the software is supported exclusively by Windows XP and Windows Vista Operating Systems. Mac users might use it with loading multi-system load utility BootCamp.

Earlier, at the end of August 2007, a similar service was launched by Google. With Google Sky, add-on to the famous Good Earth, you are able to examine the images of the celestial sphere. However, to be fair, the Microsoft creation - WWT- appears to be of better designed and carries higher informative value. It is definitely recommended for everybody who is not yet gave up the beauty of Universe under the load of the day-to-day life routine!!!

Home page of project and link for the software downloading:
http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/

Project was presented for the first time by astrophysicist and science populariser Roy Gould in March 2008.
Review his video presentation of the project:

Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope

Bill Gates Recommended: Get More from Outlook with Free Plugin Xobni

Do you think Bill Gates is a visionary man? I do.

Bill Gates, speaking February 2008 at the Microsoft Office Developer Conference in San Jose, California, called Xobni "the next generation of social networking." So, what is Xobni? The application, called Xobni (name is strange, but if you spell inbox backwards, you will get what they mean), is an Outlook plug-in that not only indexes your inbox for advanced searching but also turns Outlook into a kind of social networking utility that can identify links between e-mail recipients.

Xobni digs into e-mails in Outlook and creates some kind of database, pulling key pieces of information out of messages in the folders, such as names, phone numbers, and addresses and organizes them into additional sidebar, bringing valuable collective information at your service. For example, click on one of the e-mails and the Xobni sidebar opens an information-rich profile for your contact. You will see conversation statistics (such as how often you communicate with this person and when), phone numbers, other people in the contact’s network (those who have been cc’d on earlier messages), previous and current e-mail threads, appointments, and a list of all attachments that person has sent you.

At the moment, the plug-in is available exclusively for Outlook, but more e-mail platforms’s solutions on its way. From beginning of May, company entered into a Beta stage, when anybody can download and use the utility for free, and no invitation needed.

I personally did it, and I am really excited so far by the extended mail client capabilities. Highly recommended!

More information and link for downloading: http://www.xobni.com/

Video Presentation:

Bill Gates Recommended: Get More from Outlook with

Additional Reading:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/117050
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/technology/05xobni.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006890.html

Listing of 20 Best Parental Control Freeware Utilities

The Internet is a wonderful educational tool for kids, but it also iincreasingly introduces new dangers and content that can negatively affect them. As a parent you obviously want to protect your children from viewing pornography and adult websites. And disconnecting Internet from your home PC is, probably, not the best way to deal with the problem.

The prepared rating list covers the top 20 freeware utilities to prevent inappropriate content to be delivered to your kids with brief description, access links, and rating.

http://www.rateitall.com/t-26340-parental-control-software--freeware-reviews.aspx

Find and Download Clip with ClipFinder

It seems that video naturally came as the next big thing on the Internet, slowly replacing MP3 madness. Video adds one more dimension to the people perception, sometimes making easier to show than describe.
So, how and where do you find videos on the Internet? Youtube has definitely the biggest collection, capturing a significant share of the video market. However, there are many other video sites with original content that might be worth trying as well. But, searching each and every one would be a pain.

ClipFinder from the popular German software manufacturer Ashampoo is offering a convenient solution. It is a freeware video search program that crawls some of the popular video sites, looking for content that matches your query. It supports YouTube, MySpace, MetaCafe, iFilm, VideU, MyVideo, ClipFish, Google Video, sevenload, Dailymotion, and several other video sites. The results are presented as video thumbnails that can be viewed with the built-in player with no need of visiting the hosting websites. Among additional features are possibility to bookmark and download chosen videos and advanced search through the videos databases of all the involved portals.

Link to the authors’s description and downloading: http://www2.ashampoo.com/webcache/html/1/product_2_0055__.htm

A brief video presentation:

Find and Download Clip with ClipFinder

For those, who hate clogging your computer with additional software, I can offer an alternative solution - use multi-site video search online services, searching several video hosts from a single page. The rating list, hosted at RateItAll, provides a brief description, web links, and rating. You can leave your feedback with particular services as well.

Access the list through the link:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-26312-searching-multiple-video-sharing-sites-in-one-place.aspx

Enhance Automatic Translation with Freeware Translate.Net

If you ever tried to use online machine translation service from the language you understand, you know how funny and inaccurate the translation is performed. However, in many cases, when you need to get a main idea of the foreign language site, it will be good enough, definitely, much better than no translation at all. However, the question is naturally raised if the automatic translation can be improved, bringing more accurate results. Translate.Net, a free Windows translation aggregator is a desktop application offering the results from different language translation engines and dictionaries, letting you compare obtained results.

There are 17 services, 35 languages, and 1352 translations directions supported by the software with GUI localized to French, Chinese, Ukrainian and Russian. The program remembers your recent translation directions and allows saving your previous choice for the next session.

Note, that the software requires permanent Internet connection for processing of queries and retrieving translating results.

More information and source for downloading: http://translateclient.googlepages.com/index.en.html