Software Recommendations

[Mike Ungerman]

Reply to this discussion to post your recommendations for software. Whether it's a program you've purchased, one you want more information on before buying, a link to a free or shareware program, we'd probably like to hear about it.

Remember to reply to the top level discussion rather than replying to a members reply to keep the quoting down. If you do reply to a members reply, edit out their original text, as it's not necessary to quote again and makes for a lot of stuff on the page.

Mike

[Sheila Bigel]

Thanks Mike for posting PC magazines free software (my favorite kind). I started looking through the list and found one that I tried: http://www.zamzar.com/
This is a beta site where you can convert files from one format to another. So, if someone sends you a .docx file and you don't have Office 2007 you can upload the file to this site. They will email you a link to the converted file. They have alot of different formats they convert including video formats.
I tried it and it took about an hour to get the link back. That could be because the email address I gave was a new otherinbox one. They want you to sign up for paid service which I imagine is faster, etc.
Sheila

[Mike Ungerman]

Easeus Partition Manager

Many of you are already familiar with the partition managers from Partition Magic and Acronis. Both are great and accomplish partitioning, formatting, resizing tasks, etc.

Easeus Partition Manager does most of the same tasks, and for individuals, it's free. Businesses are requested to purchase a license.

Easeus Partition Manager can run from your current XP or Vista 32-bit installation. EPM's basic features handle the biggest and most important partitioning tasks. You can resize, create, format, and delete partitions, and most functions can be completed without requiring a reboot. Resizing can be done visually, by adjusting the slider bar, or by entering in a precise size in the text field below. You can also drag the slider to achieve an approximate size, and then adjust the field manually to your specification.

Get your download here: http://www.download.com/Easeus-Partition-Manager/3000-2248_4-108633...

[Mike Ungerman]

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer

If you use Firefox as your Internet browser on more than one computer, then Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer is an essential add-in you won't want to miss. Install Foxmarks on each computer, and it works silently in the background to keep your bookmarks and (optionally) passwords synchronized. Foxmarks also keeps your data backed up and safe from computer failures. If you're away from your computer, Foxmarks allows you to access your bookmarks online by logging into my.foxmarks.com

I found it helps to have one computer be your Master, and then synchronize with the other computer over the Internet. So I cleaned up my bookmarks on my desktop computer first, then went to my notebook and deleted duplicates and out of date bookmarks. I then installed Foxmarks on my desktop and did my first synchronization with their server. Your account there is password protected. Then I went to my notebook and synchronized. When the events were finished, I had the same bookmarks in the same order on both computers.

Download at: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410

[Mike Ungerman]

Tiny URL Generator for Firefox

I've used Tidy URL for a long time to shorten long Internet addresses into an easily referenced and forwarded URL. Normally, you just go to their website, http://tinyurl.com and paste in the long URL and get a short one.

This add-in for FireFox makes the whole process almost instantaneous. When installed, you get a small link symbol in the right hand status bar which you click on and immediately the Tiny URL address is pasted to your clipboard. You can then insert it into an email or a posting on your blog or a web site (like this one.)

If you have FireFox, go to this link to download it: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10586#reviews and, oh yes, here's the Tiny URL for it as generated right now in my FireFox browser: http://tinyurl.com/acvxhu

[Sheila Bigel]

I downloaded today's giveawayoftheday. It is an application that copies drivers from your computer. From the description: "It identifies all the hardware in the system, extracts their associated drivers from the hard disk and backs them up to a location of your choice. Then when you format and reinstall/upgrade your operating system, you can restore all the “saved” drivers just as if you had the original driver diskettes in your hands."
I copied my drivers to a flash drive.
Seems like a good idea.

[Mike Ungerman]

USB Disk Ejector

A program that allows you to quickly remove USB devices in Windows. It was originally designed to remove only USB pen drives but will now eject any USB device. It can be run as a non-visual command line program or a normal gui program. Its very useful if you have a USB flash/pen drive, especially if you use a menu such as PStart or the Portable Apps launcher.

The command line options are very flexible, they can be used to:

* Eject the drive that the program is running from.
* Eject a drive by specifying a drive letter.
* Eject a drive by specifying a drive name.
* Eject a drive by specifying a partial drive name.

When run as a ‘normal’ GUI program the tools enables USB devices to be quickly ejected through a mouse click or keyboard press. It’s especially useful when dealing with multiple USB devices and for Vista users who don’t want the ‘now safe to remove this device’ dialog box to appear.

The program was designed for and has been tested on Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. It does not work on Windows 98 (this may change in a future release).

http://quick.mixnmojo.com/usb-disk-ejector

[Mike Ungerman]

InfraRecorder: A free alternative to Nero and Roxio for CD/DVD Burning

InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration.

Features

* Create custom data, audio and mixed-mode projects and record them to physical discs as well as disc images.
* Supports recording to dual-layer DVDs.
* Blank (erase) rewritable discs using four different methods.
* Record disc images (ISO and BIN/CUE).
* Fixate discs (write lead-out information to prevent further data from being added to the disc).
* Scan the SCSI/IDE bus for devices and collect information about their capabilities.
* Create disc copies, on the fly and using a temporary disc image.
* Import session data from multi-session discs and add more sessions to them.
* Display disc information.
* Save audio and data tracks to files (.wav, .wma, .ogg, .mp3 and .iso).

http://infrarecorder.org/

[Mike Ungerman]

Decrapify Your Computer

The first step’s an easy one: download and run PC Decrapifier. PC Decrapifier maintains a list of crapware commonly installed on OEM machines, and uninstalls them for you en masse.

The decrapification (did we mention that “decrapify” is one our favorite verbs?) process is very simple. Just use the internet or a USB thumb drive to get the executable onto the laptop, then give it a run. When you’re asked, indicate that you’re running PC Decrapifier on a new computer.

The program will perform a quick scan, then return a list of programs that it identifies as junk. In our test with a thoroughly gunked up Toshiba laptop, PC Decrapifier did an admirable job of finding all of the obvious junk programs, like trial versions of bad software, and spam shortcuts with names like “Get 15 Free Photo Prints.” By default, PC Decrapifier will mark all of these for deletion, so unless you’ve got a hankering for some dubious free photo prints, just click the Next button.

Now PC Decrapifier will display a list other programs that it has detected on your system. This includes all the programs that are not necessarily junk, but which you may not want on your system, anyway. For instance, on our test laptop, this list included Picasa, Napster and Google Desktop. We could have left these intact, but because we like starting with a totally clean slate, we decided to go down the list and pick out all the programs that we could identify as being non-vital, and selected them for deletion. You don’t have to worry about getting absolutely everything, because in the next step we’ll run a targeted uninstaller to clean up whatever we missed.

These programs don’t uninstall as quickly as those on the first batch did, and you’ll find yourself having to manage the uninstall dialogues for all of them.

[Sheila Bigel]

I know this is a little late since the discussion started in April; however, I just found a neat software application. It is called FormatFactory. You use it to convert video and audio to multiple formats. I just converted 2 videos (actually animated slideshows) I had on my PC to Iphone format. It was easy and it worked very well.
You can download FormatFactory at: http://www.pcfreetime.com/

[Mike Ungerman]

Backup Your Desktop Icon Arrangement

Sometimes changing the configuration of your computer by adding a new device driver or program causes your desktop to hickup and scramble or compact your icon arrangement.

The magazine, Maximum PC has made a simple utility available that will allow a backup and restore option to be added to your My Computer icon's properties menu when you right click on it.

Download the file at http://bitly.5jAD0

It's a zip file with two files in it. One is a ".reg" file that you double click to make a registry entry for you. The second is a ".dll" file that you manually copy to your c:\windows\system 32 folder. Once the file is in the folder, double click on the .reg file and the changes will be made. Right click on your My Computer icon and you'll see the new options.

[Mike Ungerman]

Startup Delayer

The power to speed up your computer's startup process!

Can you learn another language in the time it takes for your machine to boot? Do you turn on your PC when you go to bed, so it's finished booting by the time you get home from work the next day?

When Windows loads it's Startup file, it attempts to load every program in there at the same time. Therefore if you have quite a lot of programs starting when Windows starts, each program will try and grab CPU time so that it can load.

If each program tries to do this at the same time, you soon notice the slow down that occurs, due to your CPU trying to help all the programs to load, and your hard disk accessing multiple files.

Startup Delayer allows you to setup how many seconds after Windows has started, to load each program.

For Example:
If you have your mail program and a special clock starting up, then you can make your mail start say 10 seconds after Windows has loaded, and then the special clock start 20 seconds after Windows Starts.

Compatible with Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/XP64/Vista

Download here: http://tinyurl.com/negd7e