Portable Freeware Media Viewer and Editor - FreeVimager

FreeVimager is am image viewer and editor. It can as well play AVI video files and some type of audio files.

Main Features

•View & Edit graphics file of type: JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF (multi-page), PNG, PCX and EMF.
•Save As PDF command
•Jpeg lossless rotate and crop
•Works with all Windows versions from 95 up to Windows 7
•Multi-monitor support: switch form one monitor to another through context menu or TAB key
•The executable only version stores the settings to a INI file
•Preview Display with transparency (useful when working with two or more monitors)
•Unicode support: Open, Edit, Batch Process or Batch Rename your files named in Russian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese...
•EXIF is displayed and all data are kept when editing and saving images
•EXIF date / time adjustment in batch mode
•IPTC & XMP single file / batch editing support for JPEG and TIFF files
•Batch Processing and CD / DVD Slideshow creation
•Print Preview with image positioning by dragging
•Size optimized Email sending of images and AVI files
•Well known editing features like: rotate, crop, resize, brightness, contrast, sharpen, ...
•Live configurable Redeye removal tool
•Live Ansel Adams Zone System Histogram under Brightness, Contrast, …
•Twain Scan multiple pages to tiff and PDF (possibility to Email directly)
•AVIvideo player with snapshot functionality and draggable borders in full-screen mode
•Audio and CD player
•Zip extraction (context menu entry available)

Website: http://www.contaware.com/content/view/45/45/

View all installed USB devices on your system

USBDeview is a small utility that lists all USB devices that currently connected to your computer, as well as all USB devices that you previously used.

For each USB device, extended information is displayed: Device name/description, device type, serial number (for mass storage devices), the date/time that device was added, VendorID, ProductID, and more...

USBDeview also allows you to uninstall USB devices that you previously used, disconnect USB devices that are currently connected to your computer, as well as to disable and enable USB devices.
You can also use USBDeview on a remote computer, as long as you login to that computer with admin user.

License

This utility is released as freeware.

System Requirement

This utility works on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7.

Under Windows Vista/7/2008 with UAC turned on, you should right click on USBDeview and choose 'Run as Administrator'. In order to disable/enable USB items on x64 systems, you must use the x64 version of USBDeview.

Developers’ website: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

Download (32-bit OS): http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usbdeview.zip

Download (64-bit OS): http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usbdeview-x64.zip

Speed up your Writing with PhraseExpert

If you are writing a lot of professional or technical documentation, and you would like to speed-up a process, you may find a freeware PhraseExpress quite useful.  After a while you may avoid typing the most common phrases again and again. Instead, the program will perform educated guess and will input the string automatically.  

How PhraseExpert may help you?

• Organize frequently used text snippets.

Text snippets allow you to reply instantly to common questions. A snippet can be anything from a short phrase like “Kind regards” to a complete contract draft. When you are replying to an email, you simply type a text shortcut ("Autotext"), press a hotkey or select the desired phrase from a selection menu, and the snippet will be inserted for you automatically.

• Expand abbreviations as you type.

PhraseExpress expands text abbreviations into full phrases for you. E.g. typing 'sig' could insert your signature into any program.  It provides this known MS Office Autotext feature in any Windows program, e.g. Internet Explorer, Excel, Database Front Ends, etc.

• Auto-Complete

PhraseExpress silently monitors your individual text input and analyzes repetitive phrases. The text prediction algorithm is completely different from tedious Auto-Complete functions that are using just static dictionaries or web based contents. PhraseExpress rather adapts to your individual writing style. It learns what you type, it learns which suggestions you like and which you didn't. It automatically dumps rarely used words and assesses frequently word combinations based on your preference usage and frequency.

• Spell Checking

PhraseExpress includes a system-wide spell checker in seven languages in any program. PhraseExpress supports Unicode for multi-language phrases and also offers you to switch the keyboard language layout automatically during keyboard input. This enables multi-language users to use different language within a single phrase with correct display of the characters. Or you can highlight any text and let PhraseExpress change the language scheme on demand.

• Clipboard Manager

While the standard Windows Clipboard keeps only the last copied data, the PhraseExpress Clipboard Manager stores recently copied clipboard contents for instant pasting into any application.

• Program Launcher

Launch programs simply by entering a text shortcut. For example, type 'word' to launch Microsoft Word or 'exc' to open a spreadsheet. You can define whether the program shall launch instantly or optionally after pressing a customizable confirmation key.

• Correct spelling mistakes in any application.

PhraseExpress Standard Edition is free-of-charge to all personal users:

• Fully featured
• No trial expiration
• No Spyware
• No Adware
• No strings attached!

Website: http://www.phraseexpress.com/

Paint.Net – Free Alternative to Photoshop

About

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.

Features

Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface

Every feature and user interface element was designed to be immediately intuitive and quickly learnable without assistance. In order to handle multiple images easily, Paint.NET uses a tabbed document interface. The tabs display a live thumbnail of the image instead of a text description. This makes navigation very simple and fast.

The interface is also enhanced for Aero Glass if you are using Windows 7 or Vista.

Performance

Extensive work has gone into making Paint.NET the fastest image editor available. Whether you have a netbook with a power-conscious Atom CPU, or a Dual Intel Xeon workstation with 8 blazingly fast processing cores, you can expect Paint.NET to start up quickly and be responsive to every mouse click.

Layers

The feature, usually only found on expensive or complicated professional software, layers form the basis for a rich image composition experience. You may think of them as a stack of transparency slides that, when viewed together at the same time, form one image.

Active Online Community

Paint.NET has an online forum with a friendly, passionate, and ever-expanding community. Be sure to check out the constantly growing list of tutorials and plugins!

Automatically Updated

Updates are free, and contain new features, performance improvements, and bug fixes. Upgrading to the latest version is very simple, requiring only two clicks of the mouse.

Special Effects

Many special effects are included for enhancing and perfecting your images. Everything from blurring, sharpening, red-eye removal, distortion, noise, and embossing are included. Also included is our unique 3D Rotate/Zoom effect that makes it very easy to add perspective and tilting.

Adjustments are also included which help you tweak an image's brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, curves, and levels. You can also convert an image to black and white, or sepia-toned.

Powerful Tools

Paint.NET includes simple tools for drawing shapes, including an easy-to-use curve tool for drawing splines or Bezier curves. The Gradient tool, new for 3.0, has been cited as an innovative improvement over similar tools provided by other software. The facilities for creating and working with selections is powerful, yet still simple enough to be picked up quickly. Other powerful tools include the Magic Wand for selecting regions of similar color, and the Clone Stamp for copying or erasing portions of an image. There is also a simple text editor, a tool for zooming, and a Recolor tool.

Unlimited History

Everybody makes mistakes, and everybody changes their mind. To accommodate this, every action you perform on an image is recorded in the History window and may be undone. Once you've undone an action, you can also redo it. The length of the history is only limited by available disk space.

System Requirements

• Windows 7 (recommended),
     or Windows XP SP3,
     or Windows Vista SP1 (SP2 and Platform Update recommended)
• 800MHz processor (dual-core recommended)
• 512MB of RAM
• 1024 x 768 screen resolution
• 200+ MB hard drive space
• Optional: 64-bit mode requires a 64-bit CPU and a 64-bit edition of Windows

Paint.NET also depends on Microsoft's .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, which is automatically installed if it isn't already on the system.

Please note that Paint.NET uses your hard drive to store temporary files related to undo/redo history. 

Because of this, actual disk space requirements will depend on the actions you perform on an image, and on the size of the image.

Languages

The utility is available in many languages including Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French, Frisian, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Spanish.

Website: http://www.getpaint.net/