WinX DVD Ripper

Digiarty Software, one of the best known multimedia software developers claims that its WinX DVD Ripper is the very Best Fastest Free DVD Ripper to Convert and Rip DVD to MP4 AVI WMV MPEG MOV FLV.

WinX DVD Ripper is indeed considered high quality, totally free, DVD ripping software that can be useful for multiple purposes for all computer users. It can help you to backup DVD to hard drive for better protection and longer storage or convert to one of the multimedia formats, playable on portable devices, or compressed to save space on your Hard Drive, USB, or DVD.

This free DVD ripper is able to free rip DVD to MP4, WMV, AVI, FLV, MOV, MPEG, H.264 formats, and easily convert DVD to iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, Android phone, PSP, etc. with customized profile settings.

In support of all regular DVDs, this DVD ripper freeware can also convert and rip copy protected DVDs, so you can copy virtually any DVD, which is supposed to prevent from performing this operation for copyright purposes. It can remove DVD CSS, UOP, RCE, region code and even Sony ARccOS.

With only a few clicks, WinX Free DVD ripper delivers you excellent video/audio quality at super-fast speed through Hyper-threading and Super Encode Engine based on MMX- SSE & 3DNow. This free DVD ripping software contains no malware, adware, spyware or virus at all.

Developer’s website: http://www.winxdvd.com/dvd-ripper/

My personal experience is pretty positive with this utility. I am using its Platinum version, which has been given away for free couple of months ago, and now costs $35.95, but all the features I really need are those which are included in the free version, presented above. Developers noticed that the free version does not support the latest DVD protection from Disney X-project DRM adopted by Disney, Paramount and Warner, but I had no case, when I needed to break this lock for backup purposes.

Please use the software responsibly, and do not apply the tool to copy illegally the data, which is not allowed to be copied by the authors. However, I am not a computer police, so use your common sense and your own ethical framework.

QuickAudio - Free audio editing software for Windows

QuickAudio is freeware, full-featured audio editing software which lets you edit, play and record digital audio as well as convert between various popular audio formats. It has standard audio editing features, multiple undo, audio spectrum analysis as well as support for up to 24 VST different plugins. Zoom out to edit your whole waveform at once or zoom in to edit individual samples. Cut and paste between as many files as you like.

The software was developed by Canadian Sion Software, one of the software development leaders for the music related utilities.

Formats supported include: 

• Wave
• MP3
• Ogg Vorbis
• AIFF
• CDR

Editing operations include:

• Cut, Copy and Paste
• Change sample rate, bits per sample and channels
• Insert Space
• Amplify
• Silence
• Fade In
• Fade Out
• Normalize
• Compress
• Reverb
• Filters - Lift/Attenuate Musical Presence, Vocal Presence, Bass, Midrange, Treble
• Remove Noise
• Change Duration (without changing pitch)
• Change Pitch (without changing duration)
• Add up to 24 VST plugins for your own custom editing

Website: http://www.sionsoft.com/qaudio.html

Download the installation file from the Download tab on the top of the page.

3 Freeware utilities for Kindle users

If you are representing the new crowd of Ebook gadgets’ users, you might already face the necessity to convert the text format of the found texts to the particular format that will be accepted by your device properly. While each gadget has the list of the supported formats, not all of them are convenient to use on your device. For example, Kindle is reading PDF, but if the file is not prepared properly, you might find it unacceptable.

So, if you own Kindle, you need software to convert text file formats in the formats, supported by this device, preferably to the branded Kindle format – MOBI. In this post, we will present several freeware utilities to help you.

1. Calibre

Calibre is considered by many users as the only best software for Calibre, for some it is even the only software needed. Supporting major operation systems as Windows, Mac, and Linux, this features-reach, ambitious eBook management suite includes eBook format conversion, an eBook reader for any format, and online tagging and local organizing of eBook files. It also supports direct synchronization with Android, iOS, and most all eBook reading devices, including the Kindle.

For Kindle owners, Calibre is the easiest and most reliable way to convert almost any document format into a Kindle friendly format (such as .MOBI). It is also a great tool for tagging/downloading metadata to your eBook files as well as syncing them with the Kindle. It is especially great tool for those who mostly use external, non-Amazon sources to fill the gadget library.

Calibre supports the conversion of many input formats to many output formats. It can convert every input format in the following list, to every output format.

* Input Formats: CBZ, CBR, CBC, CHM, DJVU, EPUB, FB2, HTML, HTMLZ, LIT, LRF, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, SNB, TCR, TXT, TXTZ

* Output Formats: EPUB, FB2, OEB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, HTMLZ, PDB, PML, RB, PDF, RTF, SNB, TCR, TXT, TXTZ

The conversion engine has lots of powerful features. It can rescale all font sizes, ensuring the output e-book is readable no matter what font sizes the input document uses. It can automatically detect/create book structure, like chapters and Table of Contents. It can insert the book metadata into a "Book Jacket" at the start of the book.

Website: http://calibre-ebook.com/

Direct Download Page: http://calibre-ebook.com/download

2. Hamster

This freeware Hamster software also can convert pretty much any eBook and document format into a Kindle friendly format such as .MOBI. It does not try to cover all the features, which Calibre offers, but the conversion part is done by this utility with high speed and quality.

The software is very user-friendly and can perform a job for multiple files on the go, applying drag-and-drop approach. Format selection can be done directly, or you can just chose your device type, and select the preferred output format for your operation.  

Website: http://ebook.hamstersoft.com/en/home

Direct Download Page: http://stuff.hamstersoft.com/launch/hamsterfreeebookconverter.exe

Note that once run, the installer will download installation data from the internet (approx 45 MB of data). The installer will ask if you also want to install Hamster Free Zip Archiver by default, so make sure to UNCHECK that if you do not want it.

3. Auto Kindle eBook Converter

The Auto Kindle eBook Converter is free open source utility, developed for the same purpose as the software, offered above, however, it covers much smaller list of the applicable formats, while doing that well. The input file formats supported are: PDF, Lit, and HTML files, while the output is a Kindle-friendly .MOBI format.

The software has almost no interface, it will ask you to point to the input files and will generate MOBI output files pretty fast.

Website: http://sourceforge.net/projects/autokindle/

Direct Downloading Page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/autokindle/files/latest/download?source=files

************************

Update 02-10-13:

Out of the three utilities mentioned in this post, I am using Calibre. It is the best and the only software you need for your Kindle. Software is in active development, and recently the new software version 0.9.18 was released. You can download it from the following link: http://status.calibre-ebook.com/dist/portable.

Highly recommended!

Virtual Desktops Manager from Windows Sysinternals

Computers development is moving fast in different directions. Your monitors become bigger and the screen resolution – better. At the same time, the amount of applications, shortcuts, widgets, and other useful elements you would like to keep handy, may grow faster, than the ability to place on your desktop. The common solution available is offered by multiple virtual desktops. You can define them by users, if multiple users utilize the same computer, or by functions, for example – one desktop for business, another – for leisure, or keeping in mind some other objectives.

There are multiple software programs, both freeware and commercial versions, addressing these needs, and we are going to present today the tiny 60-KB utility from Windows Sysinternals (owned by Microsoft) is a simple way to set up four virtual desktops on your system.

Desktops utility allows you to organize 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.

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.

Website: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881

Download: http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Desktops.zip

Alternative program we observed earlier - Dexpot. Feel free to check it, if you like the idea, but need to explore more features-rich utility.

Jaangle Free Portable Music Player and Organizer

Jaangle (formerly Teen Spirit) is open source, free, music player and organizer software. It categorizes your mp3, ogg, wma, avi etc collection and displays it in easy to browse, user interface. It has a quality audio - video player and also an integrated tag editor.

Description

Jaangle has an intuitive and user-friendly interface for playing music, an excellent library for music managing, and very interesting download capabilities of artist photos/bios, song lyrics, etc.

You start by adding a folder which contains your music files (mp3, wma, avi, mpg etc). Jaangle scans and reads the available tag info. The artists appear in the tree like control. Each time you click on an artist all his tracks can be seen in the list pane, artist biography and image are automatically downloaded from the internet and displayed in the information pane. By double clicking a track in the list you hear the music playing. More info may appear (if available) in the info pane like lyrics or comments.

Jaangle is a Microsoft © Windows software application and it is tested in Windows XP/2003, Vista. It is certified by softpedia as 100% free of malware, including adware, spyware, viruses, trojans and backdoors.

License: Open source (GPL) free software (Freeware).

Main Features

* Media Player. Jaangle is using minimal resources (memory, CPU) for playing audio files based on the excellent bass engine. It plays video files using the DirectShow filters. By default it crossfades between tracks.

* Supported Audio Formats: mp3, mp2, wma, cda, ogg, mp1, aiff, xm, it, s3m, mod, mtm, umx, mo3, mpc, flac, mid, midi, ac3, mp4, ape, m4a and more based on directshow filters installed.

* Supported Video Formats: mpg, avi, mpeg, wmv, mp4 and more based on directshow filters installed.

* Music file tag editor (mp3, mpc, wma ...). You can tag files easily by right clicking in each track and click "properties". Alternatively you can drag-drop a track over a different artist/album/genre/year in the tree control. There are more ways to mass-tag your tracks by changing Artist / Album properties or by multiple select many tracks.

* Management. You can view your collection in various ways like Artists / Album, Year / Albums and more. Sorting is also available for every item type.

* Information downloading. By default, Jaangle, automatically downloads information from various sources in web. It is able to download information from Amazon (Album covers / Album reviews), LastFm (Artist Bio / Artist photo / Album covers), and Google (Track lyrics).

* History Logging. Jaangle automatically keeps log of the music you play. Note that it logs it only if you fully listen the track. You can see the full log of all the tracks that you have played and also track / artist statistics like top 10 per year/month etc.

* Info Display. Detailed information is displayed is the bottom right panel. It shows the artist (picture / bio) or the album (cover / review). By clicking the config button (the second icon in the title bar) you can choose to display visualizations/video or a web browser.

* Advanced Searching

* Visualization. Jaangle uses the excellent WinAmp's avs for displaying visualizations. You can add more visualization by adding visualizations scripts in the avs subdirectory.

* Game. Jaangle feature some variations of a music quiz game (it is inspired from my iPod) and the interface reminds "who wants the millionaire" TV game.The general idea is to select as quickly as possible the correct track that you listen. The games feature a total available time, a bonus in a correct answer, and a penalty in a mistaken one.
* And more…

Developers Website: http://www.jaangle.com

Direct Downloading Link (portable version): http://www.jaangle.com/files/jfiles.zip

Foolproof File Unlocker - LockHunter

LockHunter is a free tool to delete files blocked by something you do not know. It is useful for fighting against malware, and other programs that are blocking files without a reason. Unlike other similar tools it deletes files into the recycle bin so you may restore them if deleted by mistake.

Freeware is developed by Russian software development team Crystal Rich Ltd.

Key Features

* Shows processes locking a file or folder.

* Allows unlocking, deleting, copying or renaming a locked file.

* Allows killing locking process.

* Allows removing locking processes from hard drive.

* Integrates in to Explorer menu.

* It deletes files into the recycle bin, so you may restore them if deleted by mistake.

* Supports both 32 and 64bit Windows.

Website: http://lockhunter.com/

DVD Shrink - Free Software for Compression and Decryption of Copy-Protected DVD

There are several issues you may surface when you try to backup your DVDs. First of all, some disks are copy-protected, and embedded code will not allow you to copy it through common ways to prevent illegal distribution of the recorded media. But, if the DVD is yours, and you just want to preserve its copy in case the original media is damaged, you are stuck. DVDShrink – free software utility – will help you to remove the annoying protection. The second problem is related to the DVD size. You may just not be able to fit it to your blank DVD because there is not enough space. Definitely, compressing the disk may cause the certain quality losses, but in most cases, it cannot be even noticed. DVDShrink will assist you to perform the DVD compression as well to the certain degree.

If you have have the latest version of the DVD burning software from Nero, DVDShrink will also burn your backup DVD right away. If you already possess alternative burning software and prefer to stick with it, then you can still use DVD Shrink. The output from DVDShrink can be saved as files on your hard drive, which you can then burn with software of your choice.

As it was noticed already, most commercial DVD titles are encrypted, which prevents you from either copying them to your hard drive, or if you manage to do so, being able to play the resulting files. DVDShrink overcomes this problem with built-in decryption algorithms.

DVDShrink also allows you to re-author your DVD. You can make your own compilation from one or more source DVDs, or select only the parts of a DVD which you intend to view, thus preserving more space on your backup for the highest quality viewing.

Developers’ website: http://www.dvdshrink.org/what_en.php

Detailed guides on how to install and use the software:

• Doom9 has written an excellent DVDShrink Guide which covers pretty much everything you can do with DVDShrink.
• Check out ddlooping's interactive guides at dvdshrink.info.
• mrbass has written an excellent guide with lots of screenshots at mrbass.org.

145 Free Portable Computer Monitoring and Maintenance Utilities in One Package

Whenever possible, as you may noticed, I am trying to use portable software utilities. Stored on the portable USB thumb disk, they can be shared among multiple computers, and serve as mobile computer monitoring, troubleshooting, and repair toolkit, which is always with you.

In this post, I would like to present All-In-One package NirLauncher, consisting of more than 100 small, but useful utilities, compiled by Nir Sofer (Israel), one of the most respected young programmers in the World of the portable freeware design. All the programs in the package were developed for NirSoft Web site during the last few years, and have been updated in the last 1000 days.

NirLauncher Features

• NirLauncher can be used from USB flash drive without need of any installation.
• NirLauncher and all the utilities in the package are completely freeware, without any Spyware/Adware/Malware.
• NirLauncher package includes variety of tools that you may need for your daily computer use, including utilities to recover lost passwords, to monitor your network, to view and extract cookies, cache, and other information stored by your Web browser, to search files in your system, and more...
• For every utility in the package, you can easily run it, view the help file, or jump to the Web page of the utility.
• When using it from USB flash drive, the configuration of every utility is saved into .cfg file on the flash drive.
• On x64 systems, NirLauncher automatically run the x64 version of the utility, when there is a separated x64 version.
• NirLauncher also allows adding more software packages in additional to the main NirSoft package.

System Requirements

NirLauncher works on any version of Windows, starting from Windows 2000 and up to Windows 7. NirLauncher also works on x64 systems. Some the NirSoft utilities have a separated version for x64, and NirLauncher automatically run them when you're in x64 system.

Using NirLauncher

In order to start using NirLauncher, simply extract all files in the package into your flash drive, or any other disk you want. You must extract the package with full folder names, so all NirSoft utilities will be add into NirSoft Subfolder. After you extracted the package, simply run the executable file - NirLauncher.exe

Note

Due to the character of some utilities in the package, you may experience certain False Positive issues – your Antivirus program may display false alerts, saying that the utilities are infected with Trojan/Virus/Malware. Based on my personal experience, and the experts reviews, there is no danger in any of the parts of the software, and you can simply disregard warnings if appear.

List of Utilities with brief description

The following utilities are included in NirLauncher package. This list is automatically updated when a new NirLauncher package is released.

1.       AlternateStreamView - Find all hidden alternate streams stored in the file system.

2.       AltStreamDump - Dumps the list of NTFS alternate streams.

3.       AppCrashView - Displays the details of all application crashes occurred in your system.

4.       Asterisk Logger - Reveals the passwords stored behind the asterisks ('***') boxes.

5.       AdapterWatch - Displays useful information about your network adapters.

6.       ActiveXHelper - View essential information about ActiveX components installed on your computer.

7.       BatteryInfoView  - Displays battery information on laptops and netbooks.

8.       BlueScreenView - Show information about blue screen crashes occurred in your system.

9.       BluetoothCL  - Show bluetooth devices list.

10.   BluetoothView - Monitors the activity of Bluetooth devices around you.

11.   BulkFileChanger - Change date/time/attributes of multiple files.

12.   BulletsPassView - Reveals the passwords stored behind the bullets.

13.   ChromeCacheView - Chrome Browser Cache Viewer.

14.   ChromeCookiesView - Alternative to the standard internal cookies viewer of Google Chrome.

15.   ChromeHistoryView - View the browsing history of Chrome Web browser.

16.   ChromePass - Password recovery tool for Google Chrome Web browser.

17.   CleanAfterMe - Clean files and Registry values in your system.

18.   Clipboardic - Small and simple clipboard manager.

19.   CurrPorts - Displays the list of all currently opened TCP/UDP ports on your computer.

20.   CurrProcess - Displays the list of all processes currently running on your system.

21.   CSVFileView - CSV/Tab-delimited file viewer and converter.

22.   CustomizeIE - Add/delete toolbar buttons and menu items in Internet Explorer.

23.   CustomExplorerToolbar - Add Copy/Cut/Paste buttons to the Explorer toolbar of Windows 7.

24.   DeviceIOView - Watch the data transfer between a software or service and a device driver.

25.   DevManView - Alternative to the standard Device Manager of Windows.

26.   Dialupass - Recovers Dial-Up passwords in all versions of Windows.

27.   DiskCountersView - Show disk drive read/write counters.

28.   DiskSmartView - Retrieves S.M.A.R.T information from IDE/SATA disks.

29.   DLL Export Viewer - Lists DLL exported functions and their memory addresses - for debugging.

30.   DNSDataView - Retrieve the DNS records (MX, NS, A, SOA) of the specified domains.

31.   DomainHostingView - Displays extensive information about a domain.

32.   DotNetResourcesExtract - Extract embedded resources from .NET applications.

33.   DownTester - Test your Internet download speed.

34.   DriveLetterView - View and change drive letter assignments.

35.   DriverView - Displays the list of all device drivers currently loaded on your system.

36.   FastResolver - Resolves multiple host names into IP addresses/MAC Addresses and vice versa.

37.   FavoritesView - Displays the list of all your Favorites/bookmarks in a single page.

38.   FileTypesMan - Alternative to the 'File Types' manager of Windows.

39.   FirefoxDownloadsView                     - Displayed the list of downloaded files in Firefox.

40.   FlashCookiesView - View Flash cookies stored in your computer.

41.   GDIView - Displays the list of GDI handles opened by every process.

42.   HashMyFiles - Calculate the MD5/SHA1 hashes of your files.

43.   HeapMemView - View the content of all memory blocks allocated in the heap.

44.   HTMLAsText - Converts HTML documents to simple text files.

45.   HtmlDocEdit - Simple HTML designer/editor.

46.   IconsExtract - Extract icons and cursors from executbale files (EXE, DLL, OCX, CPL, etc.)

47.   IECacheView - List all files currently stored in the cache of Internet Explorer.

48.   IECookiesView - Displays the cookies that Internet Explorer stores on your computer.

49.   IEHistoryView - Displays the list of Web sites that you visited with IE Web browser.

50.   IE PassView - Recover passwords stored by Internet Explorer (Versions 4.0 - 8.0).

51.   InsideClipboard - Displays the content of all formats stored in the clipboard.

52.   InstalledCodec - List Codec drivers and DirectShow filters installed on your system.

53.   IPInfoOffline - View country information about IP addresses.

54.   IPNetInfo - Easily find all available information about IP address.

55.   LiveContactsView - View the details of all contacts in your Windows Live Messenger.

56.   LSASecretsDump - Dump the LSA secrets from the Registry.

57.   LSASecretsView - Displays the list of all LSA secrets stored in the Registry on your computer.

58.   MACAddressView  - MAC address lookup tool.

59.   Mail PassView - Recovers email passwords.

60.   MonitorInfoView - Displays essential information about your monitor.

61.   MozillaCacheView - List all files currently stored in the cache of Firefox/Mozilla browser.

62.   MozillaHistoryView - Displays the list of visited Web sites in Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape Web browsers.

63.   MessenPass - Recovers the passwords of instant messenger programs.

64.   MUICacheView - Edit/delete MUICache items in your system.

65.   MetarWeather - Decode METAR weather reports, and display them in a weather report table.

66.   MyEventViewer - MyEventViewer is an alternative to the standard event viewer of Windows.

67.   MyLastSearch - View your latest searches with Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

68.   MyUninstaller - Alternative utility to the standard Add/Remove applet of Windows.

69.   MozillaCookiesView - Alternative to the 'Cookie Manager' provided by Netscape and Mozilla.

70.   Network Password Recovery - Recover network passwords on Windows XP/2003/Vista.

71.   NetResView - Displays the list of all network resources on your LAN.

72.   NetRouteView - GUI alternative to the standard route utility of Windows.

73.   NetworkTrafficView - Displays network traffic statistics on your network adapter.

74.   NirCmd - Do many useful tasks from command-line.

75.   NK2Edit - Full NK2 (AutoComplete) editor for Microsoft Outlook.

76.   NTFSLinksView - View the list of NTFS symbolic links/junctions in selected folder.

77.   OfficeIns - Displays the details of all installed Microsoft Office add-ins on your computer.

78.   OpenedFilesView - Displays the list of all opened files on your system.

79.   OpenWithView - Disable/enable items in the 'Open With' dialog-box of Windows.

80.   OperaCacheView - Cache viewer for Opera Web browser.

81.   OperaPassView - Password recovery tool for Opera Web browser.

82.   OutlookAttachView - Extract multiple attachments from Outlook.

83.   OutlookStatView - Display a general statistics of your Outlook emails.

84.   PasswordFox - View passwords stored in Firefox Web browser.

85.   PCAnywhere PassView                     - View passwords for PCAnywhere. 

86.   PingInfoView - Ping multiple host names and IP addresses.

87.   ProcessActivityView - Show the file activity for selected process.

88.   ProcessThreadsView - Displays information about all threads of the process that you choose.

89.   ProduKey - Displays the CD-Keys of MS-Office/Windows installed on your computer.

90.   PstPassword - Recover lost password of Outlook PST file.

91.   Remote Desktop PassView - Reveals the password stored by Microsoft Remote Desktop utility.

92.   RecentFilesView - Display the list of recently opened files.

93.   RegDllView - RegDllView is a small utility that displays the list of all registered files.

94.   RegFileExport - Export offline Registry file to .reg file.

95.   RegFromApp - Creates .reg file according to Registry changes made by application.

96.   RegScanner - Scan and find values in the Registry.

97.   ResourcesExtract - Extract resources from dll/ocx/exe files.

98.   RouterPassView - Recover passwords from router config file.

99.   RunAsDate - Run a program with the specified date.

100.      RunFromProcess - Run a program from another process that you choose.

101.      SearchFilterView - View the search filters installed on your system.

102.      SearchMyFiles - Alternative to the "Search For Files And Folders" module of Windows.

103.      SeqDownload - Download sequence of images from the Web, and create animation.

104.      ServiWin - Displays the list of installed drivers and services on your system.

105.      ShellBagsView - Displays the list of all folder settings saved by Windows.

106.      ShellMenuNew - Disable/Enable items in the New submenu of Explorer.

107.      ShellExView - Displays the details of shell extensions installed on your computer.

108.      ShortcutsMan - Lists all shortcuts on your desktop/start menu.

109.      ShellMenuView - Disable/enable static menu items in context menu of Explorer.

110.      SiteShoter - Save a screenshot of any Web page into a file.

111.      SkypeLogView - View log files created by Skype.

112.      SmartSniff - Captures TCP/IP packets, view the captured data as sequence of conversations.

113.      SniffPass - Capture the passwords that pass through your network adapter.

114.      SocketSniff - Watch the Windows Sockets (WinSock) activity of the selected process.

115.      SpecialFoldersView - Easily jump to special folders in your system.

116.      SysExporter - Grab the data stored in list-views, tree-views, list boxes, and combo boxes.

117.      TableTextCompare - Compare tab-delimited or comma-delimited (csv) files.

118.      URLProtocolView - View/disable/enable the URL protocols installed on your system.

119.      URLStringGrabber - Grab URL strings of Web sites from Internet Explorer.

120.      USBDeview - Lists all installed USB devices that you previously used.

121.      UserAssistView - This utility decrypts and displays the list of all UserAssist entries.

122.      UserProfilesView - View user profiles information on your system.

123.      VideoCacheView - Extract Web site video files from the cache of your Web browser.

124.      VNCPassView - Recover the passwords stored by the VNC tool.

125.      Volumouse - Adjust the volume of your speaker with the wheel of your mouse.

126.      WakeMeOnLan -Turn on computers remotely by sending Wake-on-LAN (WOL) packet.

127.      WebBrowserPassView - Recover lost passwords from your Web browser.

128.      WebCookiesSniffer - Captures Web site cookies and displays them in a simple table

129.      WebSiteSniffer - Capture Web site files and save them on your hard drive.

130.      WebVideoCap - Capture Flash Video files and RTSP streams, watching them in a Web browser.

131.      WhatInStartup - Disable/enable/delete programs that are loaded at Windows startup.

132.      WhatIsHang - Get information about Windows software that hangs.

133.      WhoisCL - Get WHOIS information about a registered domain from command-line.

134.      WhoisThisDomain - Get information about a registered domain from WHOIS server.

135.      WhosIP - Find all available information about an IP address from command-line.

136.      WinCrashReport - Displays a report about crashed Windows application.

137.      WinFontsView - Display sample of all fonts installed on your system.

138.      WinLister - This utility displays the list of opened windows on your system.

139.      WinPrefetchView - View the Prefetch files (.pf) stored in your system.

140.      WirelessKeyDump - Dumps the list of all wireless keys stored by Windows.

141.      WirelessKeyView - Recovers lost wireless network keys (WEP/WPA) stored in your computer.

142.      WirelessNetConsole - View wireless networks information (console application).

143.      WirelessNetView - Monitor the activity of wireless networks around you.

144.      Wireless Network Watcher - Shows who is connected to your wireless network.

145.      WinUpdatesList - Displays the list of all Windows updates (Service Packs and Hotfixes).

Developer’s website: http://launcher.nirsoft.net/

Compressed package is only 11 MB!!! Highly recommended for advanced users and simply recommended for all others!

Convert video files to DVD with DVD Flick

DVD Flick aims to be a simple but at the same time powerful DVD Authoring tool. It can take a number of video files stored on your computer and turn them into a DVD that will play back on your DVD player, Media Center or Home Cinema Set. You can add additional custom audio tracks, subtitles as well as a menu for easier navigation.

Main Features

• Burn near any video file to DVD
• Support for over 45 file formats
• Support for over 60 video codecs
• Support for over 40 audio codecs
• Easily add a menu
• Add your own subtitles
• Easy to use interface
• Burn your project to disc after encoding
• Completely free without any adware, spyware or limitations.

The respectable freeware review site Freeware Genius has rated the utility 5 out of 5. Here is excerpt from their review:

This program will let you (a) combine a single file or multiple files into a playable DVD, (b) add subtitles, and (c) add secondary audio tracks. It has a number of definite strengths, as follows:

• Simple, straightforward interface design. It is remarkable how simple and intuitive this UI is, especially for a DVD authoring tool. This alone is reason enough for me to switch to this program.
• Will convert almost any video file, which means that you are extremely likely to be able to put any video that you may have on your hard drive on DVD. This is not to be taken for granted, as I recently tried to convert a video file to DVD using another favorite program of mine, AVI2DVD, only to find that it was not able to handle the audio.
• A partial list of supported formats are as follows: AVI, MPG, MOV, WMV, ASF, FLV, Matroska and MP4. Supported codecs are amongst others, MPEG-124 (Xvid, DivX, etc.), Windows Media AudioVideo. MP3, OGG Vorbis, H264, and On2 VP56.
• You can convert to ISO image on hard disk if you do need want to burn to DVD or there’s not one handy.

One thing that this program does not have is the option to create a title menu with custom backgrounds and/or music. My guess (from looking at the program’s feedback page) is that this will be coming in a future version. In any case if you must have this use AVI2DVD.

System requirements:

• Processor: A Pentium MMX or compatible AMD processor, or better. A Pentium IV or later is recommended, the faster the better. Multithreading is supported.
• Memory: At least 256 MB of free physical RAM, 512 MB or more is recommended. When using Windows Vista, at least 512 MB is required.
• Operating system: Windows 2000 Professional, or any edition of Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Developers Website: http://www.dvdflick.net/

Direct Download Link (ver. 1.3.0.7): http://downloads.sourceforge.net/dvdflick/dvdflick_setup_1.3.0.7.exe

100 million free mp3 files for download – absolutely legal

Everyone likes music. Everyone likes the favorite music to be downloaded for free on their Hard Drives. With numerous software and portable multimedia devices, you can create unlimited audio library of the songs you like, without spending a cent. The only concern, many users have, is legality of these actions. May be you have heard scary stories, spread around, about poor kids, sued for millions dollars for downloading several tracks. These stories are mostly represent urban legends and are far of being true, but this post will not deal with these myths. Instead, we will show you the way how to download the music for free with no risk for any unpleasant legal consequences.

music2pc is a free program, which is designed to find and download MP3 songs from the Internet. You can search music among more than 100 million tracks and enjoy free mp3 downloads.

Built on a very fast and safe non-bittorrent and non-peer-to-peer method of getting MP3s, the program gives you the ultimate access to our multimillion database of quality mp3 songs. There are large numbers of Free Legal Music Sources on the Internet, and the software allows you to dig this database to locate whatever you need.

The operation is simple and straightforward.  Just enter the artist name or song name and click search! The downloaded mp3 files are in standard mp3 format, and they are compatible with any portable device, like mp3 Player, iPod, iPhone, PSP, PDA, cell phone, iPad etc. The files will be stored on your devices, and not on the online database, so you can listen to them anytime whether or not you're logged on to the Internet.

music2pc is an ultimate freeware: No ads, no spyware, no charges, no time or feature limits. It is completely free for you to install, use, and enjoy.

Software accepts searches for the foreign languages as well. I tried Russian titles and got multiple results for them.

System Requirements

Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 2003, 2008 Server;

Pentium-compatible PC (Pentium II, Athlon or more-recent);

128 Mb RAM (256 Mb RAM recommended);

Minimum 15 Mb available hard disk space;

1024x768 resolution, with at least 256 colors;

Broadband Internet connection.

Website: http://www.music2pc.com/

Improve Productivity - Quickly Process Files and Folders with Predefined Actions

DropiIt is an open source tiny freeware utility to automate sorting and filing data-files and folders. No, it probably, will not perform any operations with your data, that you cannot do already with tools, built in your Operating System. But, using DropIt, you may significantly improve your productivity and complete some daily routine operations smarter and faster.

When you need to organize files, DropIt can eliminate much of the drudgery of searching and manually opening folders and moving files around.

You can configure DropIt to do 9 different predefined actions to be performed with your files and folders (Move, Copy, Compress, Extract, Rename, Open With, List, Delete and Ignore), filtering files by name, extension, location, size and/or date. You can even save sets of patterns in profiles and associate a profile to each desired folder, to scan monitored folders at a defined time interval.

You might need to review the background basic rules to perform the actions, and configure the utility for your convenience. And then the operation is simple and straightforward. Just drag and drop file or a group of assorted files and/or folders on the floating DropIt image and program will sort them automatically to defined destination folders, eventually compress or extract them, open them with associated programs or do other desired defined actions. As result, you save time on this routine operation, and the consistency of your data following the rules, improve.

Main Features

* Process files and folders manually with Drag-and-Drop
* Process files and folders automatically with Folder Monitoring
* Filter files and folders by name, extension, location, size and/or date
* Move, Copy, Compress, Extract, Rename, Open With, List, Delete, Ignore actions
* Collect patterns in different profiles and assign an image to each one
* Support also Context-Menu, Send-To and Command-Line
* Support automatic software update
* Support encryption to protect your profiles with a password
* Support internal, system and custom environment variables
* Support log file creation to verify sorting operations
* Support for Unicode encoding
* Available with Multi-language interface
* Available in both installer and portable versions

* Automatic updates function is available

Website: http://www.dropitproject.com/

Fantastic shooting gallery style game for iProducts

Most of the happy iPhone/iPod/iPad owners are constantly searching for the good and free applications. In this post, I would like to present Rage HD – free game, created specifically for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. HD version provides higher resolution textures that are optimally viewed on a 4th generation device or the iPad.

RAGE comes to your mobile device with the hit of the wastelands, Mutant Bash TV! This intense first-person rail shooter casts you in the starring role of a post-apocalyptic game show where you’ll be stalked by hungry mutants while you scour pulse-pounding levels for ammo and cash pick-ups. Make a deal with J.K Stiles, the show’s menacing host, and see if you have what it takes to survive this carnage-filled carnival of death!

Experience high resolution graphics, including an exclusive HD version for the newest generation of iPhone*, iPod Touch and iPad, coupled with dynamic music and sound effects.

iTunes Rating is 4.5 for the latest version and average rating 4 for all application releases.

Screenshots:

iTunes website: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rage-hd/id400707675

Burn CD and DVD with freeware Nero competitor

If you make a software inventory on your computer, most likely you can find a program which is able to burn audio CD, as part of the default package. Most software media players like iTunes, Winamp, or Windows Media Player are equipped with a module allowing you to burn music to your CDs. However, you may find the set of available features is basic and lack any advanced capabilities.

Using a dedicated burning program gives you the flexibility to burn music, video, and other types of files to CD, DVD, and even Blu-ray, giving you more possibilities on the way you use and store your digital media.  There are several well-known and respected packages, like Nero, that may give you what you want, by for price, and the price might be quite high. Therefore, we would like to present in this post one of the best freeware utilities for CD and DVD burning, which is mostly competitive with Nero, and can be recommended as free replacement for the users.

CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multi-language interface. The software is free for any type of use, even for commercial purposes. It does not include adware, spyware, or any other hidden malicious components. The portable version of the software, not requiring installation on the Hard Disk, is available.

List of Features

Create Data-CDs/DVDs

• Burn any Data on CD-R/CD-RW/DVD+R/DVD-R/DVD+RW/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM/BD/HD-DVD, including double layer mediums.
• Burn mp3-CDs to store many audio files on one single disc.
• Create bootable discs.
• Disc spanning: Spread data on multiple discs.
• Verify written Data automatically after burning process.
• Use either the internal browser to add your files or the intuitive Drop-Box to drag and drop files directly from any Windows Explorer window.
• Save your compilations for creation of backups
• Burn on-the-fly and with buffer-underrun protections.
• Import previous (ISO 9660) sessions and edit existing file structure on CD/DVD.
• Quick- and full-erase disc.
• Copy data discs (possible copy-protection is not bypassed).
• Retrieve recorder and disc information.

Create Audio-CDs

• Create Audio-CDs from the following formats: MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC, WMA, APE, MPC, WV (WavPack).
• Add single or multiple tracks from existing audio-CDs directly to your new compilation without ripping tracks before (add cda-files).
• Play audio-files with integrated audio player.
• Gapless audio-CDs supported (disc-at-once-mode).
• Import M3U or WPL playlists or Nero audio compilations (NRA).
• Support for ReplayGain.
• Import CUE sheets.
• Export audio compilations as M3U playlist and Cue sheet.
• Create mixed-mode discs.

ISO features

• Burn ISO files to CD.
• Create your own ISO files.
• Convert bin- and nrg-files to ISO.
• Save CDs/DVDs as ISO file to disc.

Other features

• Simple cover printing feature for data- and audio-discs.
• LightScribe integration.
• Command line version.
• Supports most IDE, USB, Firewire and SCSI drives.
• Integrated option to enable access to drive for restricted users.
• Multi-language interface.
• Online update.

If you are going to use the WMA format and don't have Windows Media Player 9 or higher installed, you also need to download and install the Microsoft Windows Media Player.

Developers’ website: http://cdburnerxp.se/en/home