Channel 9 - Entries tagged with freeware

Best Windows 7 Tweaker App

Sarah Perez — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:24:00 GMT

In the latest LifeHacker “top five,” they looked at the top Windows 7 tweaking applications. These third-party utilities let advanced users edit, hack and tweak additional settings not available through the Windows UI as well as centralize other settings in one interface for easy access. Included in the round-up were apps like Rainmeter, Windows 7 Manager and others. But the one that came out on top was Ultimate Windows Tweaker, which earned 31% of the vote. (Rainmeter was a close second at 29%).

The Ultimate Tweaker application is like a supercharged TweakUI, says LifeHacker. It lets you customize a number of options in categories like security settings, IE, network tweaks, user accounts, system performance and more. Plus, you can’t beat the fact that the application is a completely free download. You can grab it here for both Windows 7 (32 and 64-bit) and Vista.

Upgrade Task Manager

Sarah Perez — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:17:00 GMT

Anyone who runs Windows is familiar with Task Manager, the program that shows you which applications and processes are running as well as displaying real-time statistics as to how much CPU and memory those programs are using, among other things. I knew that there were programs available (like our very own Sysinternals app Process Explorer) that let you see far more info than what Task Manager displayed, but I didn’t know that you could actually upgrade Task Manager itself.

However, it turns out that there is an add-on for Task Manager called Task Manager Extension which will add more features to this program. With Task Manager Extension installed, you’ll have new features like icons in the processes window, Windows processes will be greyed-out so you’ll know to leave them alone, and you’ll have tons more features from the right-click menu including options for displaying the system path and time the process has been running.

I think for casual users a simple tool like this would be much more friendly to use than Process Explorer, for example. Unfortunately, this program only works on XP and lower, and not on XP 64 or Vista. How disappointing! If anyone knows of any similar program for Vista users, please let me know.

(thanks DownloadSquad)

How To Recover Lost Email Passwords

Sarah Perez — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:23:00 GMT

I’ll bet you can already think of a handful of times when you could have used this next tool: Mail PassView. I recently came across Mail PassView when surfing through my techie RSS feeds. The program is a freeware utility that helps you recover passwords from both Outlook and Outlook Express as well as other mail clients like Eudora, Thunderbird, Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail, IncrediMail, and Windows Live Mail. When I first saw the application, I thought that the interface looked a lot like that other incredibly handy password recovery tool: WirelessKeyView. As it turns out, they’re both from the same developer, Nir Sofer. Although on the one hand, these sort of tools make me nervous as they so easily expose the passwords you think are safe and secure, on the other I’m very grateful that they exist. I can’t even count the number of times I helped others move their files, email, and apps from one PC to another and the biggest stumbling block was always that they didn’t remember their passwords for their ISP-assigned email addresses. If only I had known about Mail PassView then…I could have saved so much time! You can download Mail PassView from here.

nCleaner – A Free App for System Cleaning

Sarah Perez — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:31:00 GMT

If you have ever used the system cleaning app cCleaner, you may be interested in checking out nCleaner as an alterative. cCleaner let you delete your browsing history, cache, cookies, while also cleaning up your Windows Explorer, emptying the recycle bin, cleaning your clipboard history, and clearing the memory in various applications (like Office).

nCleaner, on the other hand, goes even further and offers a slew of detailed options for system cleaning and offers to clean over 90 items, one of these items being a registry cleaner. Now, you will no longer need a separate program for that – it’s built right in. In addition, the software provides a system resource monitor, a system advisor, logging, scheduling, plug in option, custom cleaning, statistics, automatic updating, and a lot more.

Karl on MakeUseOf put it to the test recently and managed to recover 17 GB worth of disk space and declared the app a winner. That’s good enough for me – since it’s a free download, I’ll give it a shot. You can try it too – the download link is here.

Browsing Photos With Pictomio

Sarah Perez — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:34:00 GMT

Pictomio is a new, downloadable app for Windows that makes browsing through your photos a really cool experience. The app has a slick, modern interface and lets you flip through your photos in 3D. Because of the 3D rendering, your graphics card will need to have some juice to take advantage of this software, but the end result is worth it. Pictomio very much reminds me of what the PicLens browser add-on offers, and makes me wonder if 3D browsing is the next big thing we're going to be seeing both on the web and in our software programs.

You can also use the program to view, organize, browse, and edit your photos’ metadata, but it stops short of being a full-on image editing program. Still, this program is a lot of fun and it’s definitely being added to my list of alternatives to Windows Explorer.

Thanks FreewareGenius

Stack your Photos with PicMe

Sarah Perez — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:18:00 GMT

A freeware application for Windows called PicMe, scans your PC for your digital photos and then displays them in 3D stacks, like a digital shoe box. You can use PicMe to browse through your photos but you can also use the application to share them with your friends by using the integrated sharing feature. PicMe lets you share photos with friends on Flickr, Picassa, Facebook, or with other PicMe users. The free version lets you share up to 200 photos, but to share more, you'll have to pay. However, it's only $9.95/year for the next step up, which allows for 5000 photos. You can try PicMe by downloading the app from here.

Switcher 2.0 Beta

Sarah Perez — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:00:00 GMT

Switcher is free utility for Windows Vista (running Aero) that lets you arrange the windows on your screen in different ways. The default view is the "tile view," which arranges the windows so that you can see all of them, even across multiple monitors. Another view, called the "dock view" magnifies one window and arranges the rest along the side. There is also a grid view, which is a good one to use if you are also going to use the number shortcuts for the windows (the first 9 windows can be activated by pressing the respective number on the keyboard).

Your desktop can be treated as a window, too. In this new version of Switcher, the windows now have a customizable background color, border, and a label which can display any of the following: the filename of the application, window icon, the number shortcut, the memory used in megabytes, the process name and the window title. Other new features include filters to help you narrow down the windows that appear, the ability to close windows during a session, smoother animations, and additional keyboard shortcuts. To learn more about Switcher, check out Bao's Blog. To download the program, visit the Switcher website here.