AddictiveTips » farshad

CRegistry Comparison: See Changes To System Registry Over Certain Time

farshad — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:59:00 +0000

CRegistry Comparison is an open source registry comparison application for keeping an eye on registry changes. You can use this tool to check for changes that may have been made by newly installed applications (to the system registry), and identify unwanted changes. This application creates a .CRE registry file and enables comparison of two files. Furthermore, you can also save changes to a text file. CRegistry Comparison can be used by both novice and advanced users to compare the precise difference that occurs to a registry as a result of any kind of alterations that are rendered over a period of time (to the system’s registry), including not just the changes which may have been made by a software, but also the changes that are made by malware or system hijacking programs. This way, you can determine if an application is trying to gain access to your system for malicious purposes.

When the application is run for the first time, it creates a registry compare file on your desktop for future reference. With this file, you can compare your registry changes at any time. Click OK to continue.

Once done, your system will be scanned and updates for registry changes will be detected.

To compare registry changes, click Start Compare. This will display a comparison for your old registry files with the new ones, and the updates made to your system registry. You can even save the result to a text file via File –> Save Result.

CRegistry Comparison works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

Download CRegistry Comparison

Replace-me: Replace Document Text String via Right-Click Menu In Ubuntu

farshad — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:33:58 +0000

If you are a programmer or someone who regularly requires replacing text strings from multiple files, then Replace-me is just what you might need. It is a Nautilus extension to find and replace text strings from multiple files within numerous directories and sub-directories. It can identify and replace text strings from files via right-click context menu. Replace-me is a useful tool for those who may require finding and replacing text string from, e.g., code files or even batch files (to change the command parameters).

You can install Replace-me in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot using the following Terminal commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/nautilus-extensions

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install replace-me

After installation, either use the below command or log off and log in again to refresh Nautilus.

nautilus –q

With Replace-me, you can easily search and replace words and phrases by right-clicking a file and entering the search and replace string.

This will open a new window which will display the path of the selected file. Enter the text that you wish to replace, followed by the text string that is to be replaced. As you can see in the below screenshot, you can replace an entire text string with specified text easily within any document. this can help you replace hundreds of text strings in several files, easily. For example, if you have a code file which contains a line of code that is recurring in the file and needs to be replaced with a different line, then you can simply right-click the document, enter the text string that should be replaced (in the Replace section), and enter the text string that is to replace the text (in With section). This will replace the text string wherever it may be present in the respective document.

For more information, check out the developer’s website.

Replace-Me Nautilus Extension

Norton Identity Safe: Cross-Platform Alternative To LastPass

farshad — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:51:58 +0000

LastPass is a widely used password manager, which is available as a plugin for all famous browsers, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari. While LastPass works as a browser extension, there are also desktop applications that deliver similar functionality. Norton has recently created a comprehensive application, which brings the functionality of password management browser extensions like LastPass and desktop application like 1Password. Norton Identity Safe is a cross-platform password management application that integrates with your browser and allows you to you safeguard your login information. It quickly and securely logs users into online accounts from computers and mobile devices on the go, with a secure master password. Unlike most password managers, Norton Identity Safe also provides information regarding the safety of a website to protect you from phishing websites.

To get started, you will require logging in or signing up with a Norton account.

Once done, you can easily begin importing passwords saved in your browser and also disable the default password manager (of you browser).

You can use this application like LastPass to login to you multiple online accounts from a single master password, and to protect your passwords within a secure online vault, rather than an unsecure password manager of your browser, which can allows viewing passwords to anyone who has access to the computer. You can also edit and manage your saved passwords via your Norton account.

Norton identity Safe is available for a number of platforms, including Android and iOS devices. You can also use the mobile version to secure your login credentials and avoid remembering them, when browsing through the internet via a mobile device.

It is worth mentioning here that Norton Identity Safe is an ad-supported application, as it displays ads during the installation process, which are third-party components/services that are intended to generate income. Please make sure that you pay due attention to the installation process to skip ads. Norton Identity Safe has versions for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, iOS and Android.

Download Norton Identity Safe

Pdf-No-Img: View PDF Documents Without Images

farshad — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:54:54 +0000

Many PDF documents contain a lot of imagery, including snapshots of graphs, company logos, demonstrative images, etc. While reading a PDF document with images can be useful, it can also have an overwhelming effect on the eyes, as e-book reading can be more stressful than reading from the conventional paper. Furthermore, flashy PDF images can also be irritating as they can distract the reader from concentrating on the document. Pdf-No-Img is a handy tool that creates a an image-less version of PDF documents to allow users to read them without images. It is not a PDF viewer, but rather, it makes it possible to view PDF documents without images. When you open a PDF document with Pdf-No-Img, it replaces the imagery with gray boxes. This helps the reader to focus on the text and to avoid getting distracted by graphical content.

To open a document with Pdf-No-Img, you can either launch the application individually and drag/drop PDF files, or use the Windows Open With option via right-click context menu.

Once a document is specified, the document will open with your default PDF reader, with a new stripped down, imageless version.

If you would prefer reading all PDF documents without images, then it might be a good idea to associate your PDF documents with Pdf-No-Img, by specifying it as the default PDF reader. Obviously, the document will always open in your default PDF viewer, however, this method will allow you to view stripped down, imageless versions, each time you open a document. Pdf-No-Img wors on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Pdf-No-Img

Quickly Shred Large Files In Windows via Drag And Drop With Zer0

farshad — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:20:46 +0000

For many users, it becomes necessary to not just delete confidential files permanently, but to shred them to avoid file recovery. While there are a number of handy file shredding applications for Windows, Zer0 is perhaps the most minimalist of them all. It is a user friendly file shredder, which can delete files securely to make them unrecoverable. It provides a convenient drag and drop utility and allows instantly shredding files in a single click. Zer0′s high level security algorithm makes it impossible to recover deleted files by conventional recovery tools, and the deletion process itself is lightning fast. During testing, we spcified a 573MB file for deletion with Zer0, and it was deleted in a split second. The tool makes use of multiple system cores, and hence, provides maximum efficiency, without hanging the application.

To delete files, simply launch Zer0 and drag/drop them onto the main interface. Click Delete to shred the files. All specified files will be deleted in no time. It is worth mentioning here that while Zer0 is a very efficient, yet minimalist file shredder, we would not recommend shredding very heavy files to avoid straining your hard drive. Before shredding a file, you can determine the weight of the files that you are shredding from the Size column of Zer0. Once a file is deleted, it is marked as OK beneath the Message column.

If you want a file shredder with more advanced file shredding options, then check out Freeraser. Zer0 works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Zer0

Nanoshot: Capture & Upload Screenshots To Cloud In Ubuntu

farshad — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:40:51 +0000

In a previous post, we showed you three different ways of capturing screenshots in Ubuntu and later reviewed, Lookit, which is a handy screenshot capturing utility for Ubuntu, which enables uploading captured screenshots to the cloud. Recently, we found another handy screenshot taking application for Ubuntu, known as Nanoshot. It provides users with the utility to capture screenshots to upload them to cloud services like Flickr, and to grab screens from specific elements such as a video frame or the Unity Launcher.

You can install Nanoshot by entering the following commands in Terminal. While its compatibility with the raw build of Precise Pangolin is unknown, we successfully tested it in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot and the below PPA works with earlier Ubuntu versions, including Lucid, Karmic, Maverick (as specified by the developer) and probably Natty, as well. You can get a list of dependencies for older versions here. The reason I have labeled Natty as a probable supported version, is because we did not test Nanoshot on it, but it worked fine in Oneiric (during testing).

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nanoshot/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nanoshot

Once installed, launch and select options from the app-indicator menu. You can capture the entire desktop, the current window, a selected desktop area, a webpage, a media player, add cursor in screenshot, select a time delay for capturing screenshots, enable auto-run for Nanshot and select a video file for capturing screenshots via the app-indicator menu.

If you wish to capture video frames, then you will have to specify a video file and select the number of frames that are to be captured, as well as the output directory. You can also pick videos from recently viewed video files.

When capturing a selected area, select an area and hit Enter to save the screenshot.

Captured screenshots can be uploaded to Flickr, ImgUR or ImageShack, or saved to a local directory.

You can download the package for Nanoshot from the links given below.

Download Nanoshot

Download Nanoshot [Fedora and Tarball Source Package]

[via WML Cloud]

Encoding Decoding: Quickly Encrypt/Decrypt & Password Protect Files

farshad — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:35:15 +0000

Encoding Decoding is an encryption software, which provides a dead simple mechanism for encoding files, i.e., by dragging them to the applications interface and entering a password for them. This easy to use application makes it possible to quickly secure your important files, to protect them from unauthorized access. Furthermore, it does not replace the input file, but rather, creates a more secure version of it. The only thing that you may have to be concerned with is to remember the password, in order to gain access to protected files. Encoding Decoding (application) can be used to encrypt any kind of file, including pictures, code files, Excel sheets and other MS Office documents, PDF files, etc.

Currently, Encoding Decoding is available as a stable and beta package (version 3.0.0). The testing that we performed was on the beta version, which worked quite well. To get started, drag and drop a file to encrypt it. This will provide you with a password prompt to password protect the file. While entering the password, you will be presented with the security level of your password. It I recommended that you use at least 8 characters in your password.

After you have entered the password, a new encrypted version of the file will be created, while the original file will be left unencrypted, (which means that securing that file is up to you). During testing, deleting the original source file after creating a new, more secure version of it, did not create any problems in terms of recovering the file. We first created a new encrypted version, then deleted the source file and finally recovered the content from the encrypted file by launching it (via double click) and entering the password. This means that you can backup or remove the unencrypted version of the file, and only keep secure versions, which can be extracted any time by executing the encrypted file and entering the respective password.

Encoding Decoding works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Encoding Decoding

Metro Cheat: Get Classic Start Menu Without Losing Metro UI In Windows 8

farshad — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:51:10 +0000

Since the release of Windows 8 developer’s preview, there has been a debate among users regarding the utility of the Metro UI and its elements. For those users who did not like the Metro UI, tweaks such as the Windows 8 Start Menu Toggle were introduced shortly after the pre-beta release of Windows 8. However, it appears that it is not the Metro UI itself, but the start menu of the said interface, that has mostly annoyed users. Metro Cheat is a portable application, which allows you to acquire the Windows 7 style classic start menu, while keeping other Metro features intact (e.g., the new Task Manager, Explorer Ribbon and Metro Apps). Before using this tweak, please make sure that UAC (User Account Control) is disabled, as the application will not be able to auto start if UAC is even partially enabled.

Jut download Metro Cheat application from the link given at the end of this post, and run it as administrator. This will give you the classic start menu while retaining the Metro UI featues.

It is worth mentioning here that, during testing, we experienced some issues with Metro Cheat on a Windows 8 64-bit operating system (Developer’s Preview). Users seem to have mixed reactions regarding this application, while it seems to be working for some users, it is currently not working for others. The problem can perhaps be associated with compatibility issues related to Windows 8 64-bit versions.

Download Metro Cheat

[via intowindows]

Picturenaut: Create HDR Images From Bracketed Exposures Using Filters

farshad — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:40:56 +0000

High dynamic Range Imaging, aka HDRI, or simply HDR, is a technique that allows bringing out the range of intensity levels (in images), which are found in real scenes, such as direct sunlight or faint moonlight. HDR techniques are geared towards the representation of contrast between photos of a single imagery. Non-HDR cameras, for example, take pictures at a single exposure level, and hence, have a limited contrast range. This often results in the loss of bright and dark areas of a picture, which can be corrected by using similar images and using HDR techniques. Picturenaut is a HDR imaging application that enables users to create High Dynamic Range (HDR) images from bracketed exposures. All you have to do is to select the input images, and Picturenaut will adjust the exposures in a single HDR image, with automatic exposure correction, picture alignment and color balancing. Additionally, you can tweak the image by managing the tone mapping for creating a desired image effect. Picturenaut provides 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit modes, gamma adjustment, support for RAW images and real-time preview. Furthermore, this application is fully capable of making use of multi-core processors.

To get started, simply click Generate HDR image from brackets exposure option and add images. Once done, select required options, including Exposure correction, Ghost removal, Automatic image alignment and, optionally, color balancing. You can also select a weighting preference (Standard or Mid-Emphasis), and choose a Curve (Linear, Compute, Standard Curve or User Defined). Click OK to create the HDR image.

Afetr the HDR image is generated, you can save it in various image formats, including TIFF, PFM, EXR or HDR.

Picturenaut is ideal for users who wish to acquire low-level control to get the maximum desired output from an image. It can help photographers, image processing professionals and graphic designers to get an HDR image result that looks exactly like the image should look like, i.e., with more natural outlook. Picturenaut works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Picturenaut

View Detailed System Information In Ubuntu With i-Nex

farshad — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:00:34 +0000

When trying to determine the hardware specifications for your computer, it is not desirable to open the hardware casing, which, in some cases, can lead to loosing your warranty claim (e.g., in the case of laptops). In such a scenario, one can use some handy tools for determining the installed hardware specifications. i-Nex is one such tool that provides detailed hardware information within a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for Ubuntu. Read on past the break to find out more about this handy tool.

i-Nex is written in Gambas, which is, “A Graphical Development Environment based on a basic Interpreter, with object extensions.” The program works pretty much like CPU-Z. i-Nex comes separated in numerous tabs, with each tab providing information regarding a specific system component. As visible from the screenshot below, you can get detailed information about the CPU, Motherboard/BIOS, Sound and Graphics card, as well as other components such as the Kernel, Memory, Network etc, by clicking the respective tabs. To move across tabs, use the left/right arrow buttons. i-Nex is capable of displaying precise information about a system, including the manufacturer’s name, model number, processors cache information, hard drive sectors, RAM information (total, used, free, shared, buffers, cached and swapped), host name of the system, operating system version, time zone (being used), and more.

You can also check out similar Ubuntu tools for listing hardware information, including HardInfo and dmidecode. You may install i-Nex for your Ubuntu version, from the packages available at Launchpad. The packages are available for all latest Ubuntu versions, including Oneiric Ocelot and Precise Pangolin.

Download i-Nex

Mounty: Mount Disc Images via App-Indicator Menu Applet In Ubuntu Linux

farshad — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:54:59 +0000

We previously covered an Ubuntu disc mounting tool known as Furius ISO Mount, which mounts virtual discs and provides options for performing checksums to check the integrity of disc images. While Furius ISO Mount is quite an advanced disc mounting tool, one can always benefit from a minimalist disc mounting utility that works from the app-indicator menu. Mounty is one such disc mounting utility, which enables sharing virtual disc images. After installation, Mounty sits in the system tray and provides easy disc mounting options via the app-indicator menu.

Ubuntu users can install Mounty by entering the following command in Terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kokoto-java/omgubuntu-stuff
  sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install mounty

When launched, you can mount a disc image via the app-indicator menu applet. To mount a virtual disc image, click Open disk image option and select your virtual disc. You can also enable the Remember mounted images option to make sure that recently opened virtual disc images are auto mounted for quick viewing. You can also load Mounty at system start up by selecting Load at startup option.

When a disc is mounted, a bubble message alerts you that the image has been added to Mounty. You can open the content of the mounted disc image to explore the files inside it. Mounted discs can be ejected anytime and reloaded when required.

What makes Mounty quite handy is the fact that it does not consume a lot of the desktop space and provides a minimalist menu for quickly mounting/auto mounting and ejecting disc images. Furthermore, its ability to remember recently opened disc images makes it even more useful, as compared to other applications of its kind. It is also worth mentioning here that Mounty additionally supports the ability to load (disc) image files from your file manager. You can grab the source code and submit bug reports of this application at Launchpad.

Mounty at Launchpad

InstagramDownloader: Grab All Images From Any Instagram User In Windows

farshad — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:27:56 +0000

Instagram is a famous photo sharing application, exclusive to the iOS, which enables users to share and explore pictures, apply filters, and share them via a number of social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. Instagram is famous among iOS users and has supported web service that allow viewing Instagram images. Previously, we reviewed Extragram web service that acts as a web interface for Instagram. This time, we have InstagramDownloader, which is a portable application for quickly downloading Instagrams. You can simply download images by entering an Instagram username.

To get started, download and extract the compressed RAR archive of InstagramDownloader, enter a username and click Download. This creates a text file, containing a log of the URL for each image source extracted for the specified user.

Now, head over to the directory where InstagramDownloader is located, open the log file, copy/paste the given image URL in the textbox to grab the Instagram image via your browser. It must be noted that you will have to save the image by using the default Save As option in your browser. The below image demonstrates how you can grab an instagram image by copy/pasting a URL from the text file that will be generated (after specifying an Instagram username). Since InstagramDownloader does not allow browsing Instagram images, you can always use services like Extragram to explore Instagram images or view and input usernames by using your iOS device, such as an iPhone or iPad.

InstagramDownloader is an open source application that works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download InstagramDownloader

Design Color Schemes From A Single Color In Ubuntu With Agave

farshad — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:42:14 +0000

Agave is a Linux application for easily designing and saving color schemes. It provides users with the option to select web safe colors, Gnome icon palette, Visibone or Tango theme Palette. Once selected, you can generate color schemes from a single color selected from the given graph and save color schemes using the Add (+) option. In other words, Agave acts like a color picking utility, which is often found in applications like CorelDraw, that enables generating color schemes based on the selection of a single color block. Once you select a color, adjacent blocks are automatically filled with matching colors, which makes it possible to select a decent color combination, without endlessly pondering over a combination or going through a laborious trial and error process (for matching colors).

Agave can be installed via the Terminal in Ubuntu, by entering the following command:

sudo apt-get install agave

Once done, launch Agave, and select a color format from the drop down menu given at the bottom of the interface (web safe colors, Gnome icon palette, Visibone or Tango theme Palette). You can also choose between compliments, split-compliments, triads, tetrads, analogous and monochromatic color schemes from the drop down menu given above the color graph. After creating a desired color combination, you can add it to your list on the right sidebar. Brightness and saturation may be increased or decreased using the arrows given at the top of Agave interface. The top left arrows allow managing brightness, whereas the top right arrows are for managing saturation of the color schemes (generated after selecting a single color from the given color graph).

You can also generate random color combinations via the Random option, and switch to the previous color combination via Back. Agave has versions available for most Ubuntu variations at Launchpad, including Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal and Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, with development active for Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin.

Download Agave

Identify Colors Detected From Mouse Cursor With Colorblind Assistant

farshad — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:01:48 +0000

People suffering from color blindness cannot always differentiate between different elements of applications and webpages that are in green or red shades, including both text and background color. Most applications, which are designed to reduce the color effects, cater for only some types of color blindness. This means that users end up having to manually adjust color intensity to suit their needs. We earlier covered an application known as Washer, which helped reduce this problem. This time we have another useful application for people suffering from color blindness, labelled Colorblind Assistant. It detects colors from your mouse pointer by providing you with a written name of the color on which your cursor is placed. Moreover, it also provides other useful data about the color, such as the RGB (Red, Green and Blue) values, bar graphs, brightness and saturation. The utility comes with a zoom pane for fine pixel detection.

Colorblind Assistant sits in the system tray after being launched, and has a small 192×128 window that you can easily use alongside your regular applications, without any obstructions. The below screenshots demonstrate the utility of Colorblind Assistant and the data it provides about the color detected from the cursor.

Colorblind Assistant can be particularly of great help to professionals and other kind of enthusiasts who require dealing with the red and green color as apart of their important activities and suffer from color blindness. Some examples include people who require editing videos, creating graphics, gamers, etc. For example, a weapon labeled in red or green color maybe of vital importance for a gamer, but he might not be able to see that color due to his/her color blindness. Moving the cursor on the weapon and seeing the color name can help such gamers get extra gaming points. Colorblind Assistant works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Colorblind Assistant

Keep Track Of Files In Any Windows Folder With File Bookmark

farshad — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:10:14 +0000

Sometimes file directories can have similar file names that can make it nearly impossible to identify a file from within a folder. File Bookmark is a Windows shell extension, which has been designed to bookmark files via the Windows right-click context menu, to find the right file(s) that you have opened earlier from a specific folder. It allows you to automatically mark the last bookmarked file from a folder, so you don’t have to manually look up the file within the folder’s content. This can be quite helpful to avoid the laborious process of searching out several files from within numerous directories, and to deal with non indexed files (which can be hard to locate).

All you have to do is to click a file and bookmark it from the File Bookmark option that will be automatically added to the Windows right-click context menu, once this shell extension is installed.

When you bookmark a file, a bookmark is created within the same directory, which is distinctly unique in it’s appearance as compared to other files (as it is of a different file format). This makes it easy to launch a specific file by simply executing the bookmark by double-clicking it.

A good thing about this shell extension is that, unlike other shell extensions, it provides easy uninstallation via Options –> Uninstall (tab) or from Add or Remove programs. File Bookmark works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download File Bookmark

GonVisor: Viewer For Images, E-Books, Comics And Compressed File Formats

farshad — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:20:26 +0000

GonVisor is a Windows application that supports viewing pictures, comics, magazines, content of compressed archives and e-books from various formats, including CBR, CBZ, CBA, CB7, ZIP, RAR, ACE and 7ZIP. With the help of this application, you can create a group of selected images, order/reorder them, add a description (such as the author’s name, date, comment etc), and password protect them. Details past the break.

Files can be opened in GonVisor either by using the File drop down menu, or dragging supported files on to the main interface. The File menu contains options to open images, a list of images, a folder with images, images from a PDF, compressed archive formats (ZIP, RAR, 7Z) and comic book formats (CBZ, CBR, CBA, CB7). You can also extract opened image archives to a specified location, as well as copy an image to clipboard, print it, open a bookmark, open recent files and resume last file on startup. All these options have a hotkey displayed next to them for quickly opening the aforementioned files. You can move between pages (next/previous) from Actions menu, and switch to full screen mode, zoom, activate double page, magnify, rotate and improve image clarity from Image drop down menu.

During testing, we determined that while the application easily opened image and comic book archive files, it was unable to open archives that contained files of a different origin (such as an EXE file). This means that, although this application can open ZIP, RAR and 7Z archives, such archives must contain files of GonVisor supported format (e.g. PNG)

GonVisor is available in multiple languages, and with both an installer package as well as in portable format. Also check out Free Opener, which is an application that supports a large number of file formats, including video, audio, document and image formats. GonVisor works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download GonVisor

Mendeley: View/Sync PDF Files, Research & Collaborate With Friends

farshad — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:06:06 +0000

Mendeley is an open source and cross-platform PDF organizer, which provides options for easy document management. It allows easy reference management to help you organize your work, collaborate with friends, and to obtain latest research (via its social network). It automatically generates bibliographies, makes it possible to collaborate with others, import data, sync and access your papers from anywhere (via the internet), and more. It requires users to store all basic data on Mendeley servers, which enables accessing copies of the data any time.

At first run, users are required to either login or sign up for a free Mendeley account and get 500 MB of free storage space, which is sufficient for storing a lot of PDF documents. The credentials of this account are used to synchronize data with Mendeley servers, which is then accessible via the internet and Mendeley application (available for mobile and desktop platforms).

You can drag and drop PDF documents to open them with the Mendeley viewer. The options on the top toolbar allow users to pan, highlight text, add notes, copy/paste data, rotate (right/left), zoom (in/out), email and sync the document. All opened documents are opened in convenient tabs.

It must be noted that Mendeley is also a social network, and therefore, the collaboration can be extended to a lot of Mendeley users for seeking help and managing your research. You can even share bibliographies with your colleagues through a private group, and any member can add or edit a cited reference. Mendeley has clients for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and iPhone. Additionally, you can also login to the Mendeley website to research and collaborate with other members. Furthermore, you can also invite friends to add them to your Mendeley network. You can download Mendeley for various platforms from the link given below.

Download Mendeley

RT Se7en Lite: Create Customizable Windows 7 Installation Disk/USB

farshad — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:53:07 +0000

It can be difficult for common users to understand the complex process of creating an unattended installation disk (that requires for no manual interference during operating system installation), add custom wallpapers, themes, screensavers and other components to a Windows 7 disc. RT Se7en Lite is an application that simplifies the process of adding such features and creating an unattended installation disc/USB for Windows 7. Read on past the break for details on this useful little tool.

At startup, select a source for your Windows 7 installation package, e.g., an ISO file, and extract it to a destination folder. Make sure that you have ample space on your hard drive, as the Windows temp folder is also used by this application during the Windows 7 installation media creation process.

Once done, the Task tab will become clickable. Head over to Task and select the changes that you wish to perform. Selecting each option will allow you to make changes in the respective tab. For example, when you click Un-Attended, the Un-Attended tab will become active. Other options include ISO Bootable, Customization (both being important options), followed by Un-Attended, Tweaks, Components and Integration (optional). For detailed instructions, you can also refer to the step by step guide on the right side of the program in Task.

After selecting your desired features, click each respective tab and make appropriate changes. For example, you can add custom screensavers, themes, wallpaper, logon screen, gadgets, documents, sample, music. media sounds etc, from the Integration tab.

Once you have made all configurations, head over to the ISO Bootable tab and select a burning option (Direct Burn, Create Image, Burn Image, Erase RW or USB Bootable). Click Make ISO to proceed further.

This will burn your custom image to the selected media device.

The supported operating systems for RT Se7en Lite include Windows 7, Windows Vista SP1 – SP2 and Windows Server 2008. For complete system requirements, we recommend that you check out the developer’s instructions here.

Download RT Se7en Lite

[via intowindows]

Create Keyword Based Rules For MS Outlook & Receive Mail Alerts

farshad — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:56:54 +0000

Important Mail Alert is an MS Outlook 2010 add-in for creating rules based alerts for defined keyword. It provides a desktop alert when an email matching the specified criteria arrives. Although rules can be easily configure in MS Outlook, however, it is much easier to use keywords to create rules for mail alerts. This add-in completely integrates with the MS Outlook interface, and provides access to all your recent alerts. The keyword based rules can be applied to all message elements, including the sender, subject, body etc, and tied to your configured email address (in the MS Outlook mail client).

Once this add-in is installed, head over to the AbleBits tab (which will automatically appear) and click the Important Mail Alert option. Now, enter keyword(s) (e.g., Office Documents) and click Add rule. The keyword added as rule can be the email address of the sender, message subject or generic text from the message body of an expected email. You can select your preferred email address for applying the rule by clicking the cog icon.

Once the keyword is added, you will receive an alert when a message arrives in your Outlook Inbox. For example, if you are waiting for a mail from someone named “Ken”, you can add this name to then rule filter. When a mail arrives from this person, the name Ken will be detected and you will be provided with a desktop reminder that an email matching your specified criteria has arrived (as shown below). Click the reminder to open the email(s).

Other than MS Outlook, this add-in also works with MS Exchanger Server, and was successfully tested by us on MS Outlook 2010. Important Mail Alert (add-in) also works with previous MS Outlook versions, including MS Outlook 2003 and MS Outlook 2007.

Download Important Mail Alert

SPAMfighter: Spam Protection For Email Clients With Community-Based Filters

farshad — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:35:42 +0000

SPAMfighter is a plugin for Mozilla Thunderbird, MS Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail, that removes spam and phishing emails from the inbox of your mail client. Normally, anti-spam applications and plugins rely on filters and other rule based methods; however, spammers often find a way around these filters. This often results in plugins and applications becoming redundant after a short period of stability. SPAMfighter uses community-based filters and acknowledges the reports by large communities of people who report spam or phishing messages, when they receive them. This makes SPAMfighter more efficient in detecting spam, as it is reported by multiple users. Such emails are automatically filtered for the rest of the SPAMfighter community. Furthermore, many of the spam and phishing emails are filtered out by this add-in, before they even reach the inbox of many users. This means that you can get instant spam protection, and even if you end up receiving spam, you can report it to help the SPAMfighter community and avoid receiving mails from the sender in future.

SPAMfighter asks for an email address to monitor during it’s installation, and you can specify your default mail client email address to proceed further.

Once SPAMfighter is installed, launch it from the system tray menu by clicking Settings.

The Overview tab provides information about the spam shield, such as processed emails, blocked emails, emails blocked by you, time saved and the spam ratio. Some quick tips are also provided on the top right side for avoiding spam. You can specify your spam filtering preferences for a specific mail client from Clients section. From here, you can select your mail client by clicking its name and choosing the spam filtering mechanism (read mail, unread mails). Other than mail clients, you can also configure settings for a local Exchange server (mail server).

You can manually add/remove recipients to a block list from the Filters section. From here, you can add email addresses to block list, select a whitelist (by default all contacts are imported from the mail client and added to your whitelist), select language acceptance/rejection filters and select a sensitivity filter level, (Very Soft, Soft, Default, Hard or Very Hard).

In case you are wondering how your mail client is protected by SPAMfighter, it adds as an add-on to your mail client. You might have to do this manually after a prompt in Mozilla Thunderbird, whereas, it may install itself in other clients, such as MS Outlook (as determined during testing). It is worth mentioning here that SPAMfighter displays some ads for other products, and clicking the name of these products takes you to the developer’s website. SPAMfighter works in Trail mode for 30 days and converts to a free version if you don’t buy a license. In case you have problems uninstalling this add-on, head over to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Fighters” and click Uninstall.

Download SPAMfighter

Gnome Photo Frame: Desktop Gadget For Rotating Images In Ubuntu

farshad — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:47:56 +0000

We have previously brought you some wallpaper rotating applications for Ubuntu, including Desktop Drapes and Desktop Nova. This time, we have an Ubuntu gadget that rotates images within a photo frame on your desktop and in full screen mode (like a screen saver). Gnome Photo Frame is a desktop picture frame that enables rotating images from sources, such as a local folder, F-Spot database, Shotwell database, Facebook, Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, Tumblr, Haikyo Clock and an RSS Feed.

Gnome Photo frame can be downloaded and installed via the Deb packages (download link at the end of this post). Once installed, Gnome Photo Frame can be launched in both the Unity desktop environment, or the Gnome desktop. This gadget is quite scalable, and image size and other attributes can be easily adjusted to suit the needs of the user. You can open the frame image (in your default browser), view recent images, head over to the next image, enable full screen mode (ESC to exit), lock photo frame position, access Preferences and quit the frame, via right-click context menu. As you might have guessed from the Fix Photo Frame option, the gadget can be easily dragged across the desktop and placed anywhere (unless locked).

The General tab (in Preferences) provides options to change the time interval for picture rotation within the frame, set a maximum display size (height and width), enable visibility on visible workspace. and to auto start Gnome Photo Frame with system startup. You can specify image sources from the Plugins tab. Here, you can select a local folder, or authenticate an online account to import album images from Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Tumblr, etc. Similarly, the Photos tab enables users to manually add a new source (e.g., an RSS Feed). It must be noted that all online accounts will have to be authenticated, and access will have to be allowed to the Gnome Photo Frame application for the images to become available to the desktop frame.

During testing, we found Gnome Photo Frame to run quite seamlessly, without any lags or functionality issues. It also detected the source images quite easily; however, it seems that it is impossible to specify any sequence for the images, as they seem to appear randomly from the selected source(s). Perhaps the developer can provide some kind of image sorting options to allow users to define an image rotation sequence, in upcoming versions of the application.

Download Gnome Photo Frame

Best 60 Linux Applications For Year 2011 [Editor's Pick]

farshad — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:10:50 +0000

At the beginning of each year, we at AddictiveTips compile a list of the best applications from numerous platforms, to deliver a summary of the most useful applications (of the previous year) for our readers. We have already brought you a compilation of the best Windows applications, Mac OS X applications, Windows Phone 7 applications, Android and iOS apps of 2011. Additionally, we also brought you a list of the best Cydia tweaks, as well as the best browser extensions and web apps of 2011. Last, but not least, it is now time to take a look back at the best Linux applications of last year. While there has been extensive development at the end of the aforementioned platforms, Linux has not lacked behind either. There have been numerous OS version coming out for numerous Linux flavors, and Ubuntu itself saw Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal and Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot in the same year. With the release of these new operating systems, came new applications and updates for old ones. Let’s take a look at some of the very best Linux applications that we covered in 2011.

1. Desktop Flickr Organizer (Manage Flickr albums offline)

2. PDF Mod (Modify PDF documents)

3. eSpeak Speech Synthesizer (Multi-lingual text to speech synthesizer)

4. Arista Transcoder (Transcode files between various media formats)

5. AcetoneISO (Mount, rip, extract, convert, burn, encrypt and decrypt DVD and CD images)

6. Firestarter (Firewall for securing Linux computers)

7. News-RSS Ticker (Feed ticker that brings the latest news to your Linux desktop)

8. Ubuntu One (Dropbox like cloud storage service for Linux and other platforms)

9. Giver (Transfer files easily on a Linux network)

10. KTorrent (Lightweight Torrent client with advanced configuration options)

11. Nanny Parental Control (Parental Control application, with restrictions to limit internet usage time for children)

12. Deja Dup Backup (Backup and restore data)

13. Steadyflow (Minimalist download manager)

14. Comix (Comic book reader that supports CBZ, ZIP, RAR, TAR, JPG, PNG, GIF, TIF, BMP, ICO, XBM and other formats)

15. Liferea (Desktop RSS feed reader)

16. Gnome Activity Journal (Keeps a log of all activities, opened files and folders)

17. Blogilo (Blogging client for Linux)

18. HomeBank (Finance management application)

19. Starry Hope Uploader (Upload photos to Facebook)

20. gPoddy (Subscribe and download podcasts)

21. MyPaint (Application for making digital paintings)

22. Parcellite (Lightweight clipboard manager)

23. KTimer (Automate Commands in Linux)

24. Hardware Lister (List hardware configurations)

25. LibreCAD (Create computer aided designs)

26. Cairo Dock (Mac style dock for Linux operating systems)

27. Tea Time (Receive important reminders)

28. Eve Installer (install multiple applications in batch)

29. YeoWorks Ubuntu Solutions (Resolves commonly faced Ubuntu problems)

30. Psensor (Monitor temperature of system components)

31. Super Boot Manager (Boot manager for Plymouth, Burg and Grub)

32. Sunflower (Dual pane file explorer)

33. Boot Repair (Fix Ubuntu boot problems)

34. Lookit (Screenshot taking application, with the option to upload it to FTP server, SSH, Imgur, Omploader and CloudApp).

35. Slingshot (Mac OS X Launchpad style application launcher for Ubuntu)

36. Cryptkeeper (Encrypt folders)

37. Bleeding Edge (install software unavailable in Ubuntu repository)

38. Y PPA Manager (Easily delete and purge Private Package Repositories)

39. Synapse (Quickly Find applications, documents, videos, images, etc)

40. DesktopNova (Wallpaper Rotator for Ubuntu)

41. Hamster Indicator (Time Tracking Applet)

42. gm-notify (Gmail email notifier)

43. eMount (Create and mount encrypted disk images)

44. Gnome Subtitles (Edit, split and marge subtitles)

45. Scribes (Text editor with support for 70+ Programming Languages)

46. PlexyDesk (Widget based desktop transformation application)

47. Activity Log Manager Zeitgeist (Control Zeitgeist logging)

48. Touchpad-indicator (Automatically disable touchpad when mouse is connected)

49. LightDM Manager (Ubuntu Logon Screen Changer)

50. Gnome-Pie (Hotkey based application launcher)

51. Gnome Tweak Tool (Tweak Gnome settings)

52. Remmina (GTK+ based Remote Desktop application)

53. QMediaInfo (Get attribute information for media files)

54. MyUnity (Comprehensive tweak for Ubuntu Unity)

55. LiveUSBInstall (create live Linux USB, CD/DVD and download ISO images)

56. Natural Scrolling (Get Mac OS X style natural scrolling in Ubuntu)

57. Radio Tray (Minimalist internet radio player for Ubuntu)

58. X Neural Switcher (Automatically switch keyboard layout & fix typos)

59. Furius ISO Mount (Mount SO, IMG, BIN, MDF and NRG Images)

60. Kazam Screencaster (Record screencasts and upload to YouTube)

With the introduction of Precise Pangolin aka Ubuntu 12.04, and other Linux operating system versions in 2012, we are likely to see a rise in application development and update. Please note that these applications are not the ones released in 2011, but the ones reviewed by us. Also, this list is not exhaustive in any manner, and if you think you have a good application that we did not cover, leave us a tip in comments below.

KIOSK Enterprise: Easily Configure PCs To Run Them in Kiosk Mode

farshad — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:32:03 +0000

Kiosk mode is a minimalist mode for computer programs, which restricts the user’s rights on a computer. This mode is used for public and enterprise computers, where user privileges are reduced to avoid system issues or data theft by the end user. For example, public information computers in pedestrian zones and museums are often run in Kiosk mode. KIOSK Enterprise is an application that has been designed for a kiosk environment. KIOSK Enterprise allows configuring PCs to run in kiosk mode, which prevents users from accessing certain functions of the operating system. The idea behind KIOSK Enterprise is to avoid laboriously gathering the registry keys for applying user restrictions. The developer has mentioned that he had to manually search and identify keys via the internet to apply these restrictions in the past, and therefore, developed this application to provide the necessary keys for applying such restrictions. This application has been developed for system administrators and to make their task for configuring (kiosk) computers easily.

To get started, you will have to select a password for this application. This password will be asked for each time the application is run.

Once done, register your free version by entering your email address to activate your free personal license.

You can configure any Windows computer to run it in kiosk mode. The information generated by this application can be used to find, identify and isolate registry keys to apply user restrictions on computers. It is worth mentioning here that despite selecting the English language, the HelpEdit information might still appear in French. The rest of the interface, however, remains in English. This is perhaps something that the developer can work on, to help users identify registry keys in a more convenient manner. You can edit database, insert, delete, import, export and search items from the KIOSK database drop down menu, whereas, the System option enables you to change KIOSK user profile information and manage NT-Services.

KIOSK Enterprise also comes with built-in remote management options, including wake on LAN and remote control. The application comes with Ultra VNC installed.

KIOSK Enterprise is available as a demo version (when downloaded), which can be unlocked to a freeware version or to a full version for additional features, by using the Change License option on the home screen of the application. The paid version provides some more advanced features, such as the option to Import / Export database functions. KIOSK Enterprise works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Kiosk Enterprise

Cyber-D’s AutoReboot: Reboot System When Internet Connection Is Lost

farshad — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:28:21 +0000

Most servers require an internet connection, and some are heavily reliant on a stable internet connection, such as internet hotspots, Kiosk computers and the like. When the drivers of a network adapter crash, or the DHCP may fail to provide an IP address, a computer may require some manual configurations, such as releasing an APIPA, or resetting the network adapter. This can be quite an issue when managing several kiosk (public) computers or servers. Since many systems are present in data centers, which can be located in remote locations or are difficult to move around, it is more convenient to remotely work on them.

In order to check network related issues, some network administrators use applications like Ping Plotter to see if a system is online on the network. However, despite being connected to the network, a system can loose internet connectivity. A simple alternative to manual monitoring can be to simply reboot a computer, so that all settings are refreshed, and the system remains connected to the internet. Cyber-D’s AutoReboot is a simple application that allows you to automatically restart a computer when it is no longer connected to the internet, or when the internet connection gets disabled.

All you have to do is to launch the application, specify a test URL, a time interval to check for an internet connection (e.g., every 30 seconds), and retry attempts (e.g., 3). This will test the connection after your specified time frame, retry for connectivity according to the slected limit and if no internet connection is detected, the system will be automatically rebooted. Since Kiosk computers have minimum privileges, a problem may occur for password protected computers; however, using Netplwiz can resolve this problem for Windows Vista and Windows 7 computers. The same issue can be resolved in Windows XP by enabling direct user logon. You can move the slider to Off any time to turn off Cyber-D application. Furthermore, you can click View Log, to see the log for all system reboots in the form of a text file.

Whether Cyber-D AutoreRoot can be useful for you or not, will depend upon your requirements and the settings for the computer in question. For example, password protected Kiosk computers may not be able to benefit from it, since users will constantly prompt the system or network administrator for entering the password. Cyber-D’s AutoReboot works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Cyber-D’s AutoReboot

Green Cloud Is A Virtual Printer Driver To Save Paper & Ink Costs

farshad — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:35:55 +0000

GreenCloud Printer is a virtual printer driver that helps you save money on your daily print jobs. With the help of this application, you can save up to 33% of paper, ink and toner costs, without reducing paper quality (as claimed by the developer). It completely integrates with installed applications as a virtual printer, and allows reviewing printing jobs, removing unwanted pages, grouping pages per sheet of paper and printing documents as PDF. Furthermore, you can directly send your documents to GoogleDocs, Dropbox, Evernote or Minus.

To begin, select Green Cloud from the printing options of an application, and click Print.

Each application may offer a unique user interface, as every printer driver works differently and provides advanced options for most users. By using GreenCloud Printer as your default (virtual) printer, you can avoid wasting paper, because you can remove blank pages or a page with only a few lines of text (e.g. 2 lines, which may be headers or footers of webpages). When you click Print, a new window opens that provides the option to select a printer, remove unwanted pages, save the document as PDF, or to send it to email, Dropbox, Google Docs or Minus. To send it to the aforementioned web services, you’ll have to first set up their configuration parameters via Configure option. You can switch preview layout from Options (One page per sheet, Two pages per sheet or Four p[ages per sheet). Further options enable you to select the number of copies, toggling Grayscale and Print two sided options, as well as select Ink saving preference (small, medium or high).

to select relevant option, go to the General section (in Settings), and select Remove pages with little content option. You can also get the cost that will be incurred for each print from the Stats tab. The Advanced tab provides an additional option to use Direct 2D display (requires application restart).

GreenCloud Printer seems to be a combination of PDF writers like CutePDF Writer and paper saving virtual printers like iPrint. Hence, it provides the benefit of saving paper, creating PDF documents from almost any kind of application, and instantly sending a document to Dropbox, Minus, Evernote or an email address. For more information regarding the usage of GrenCloud Printer, check out the developer’s video below.

GreenCloud Printer works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, and supports both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

Download GreenCloud Printer

newrez: Increase Screen Resolution For Linux Netbooks

farshad — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:04:37 +0000

Sometimes, the maximum netbook resolution can be inconvenient for the end user. This is particularly the case for people who suffer from a weak eye sight. Newrez is a Nautilus-based script that enables enhancing the screen resolution of Linux computers by specifying a resolution higher than the available resolutions. For example, if your maximum resolution is 1024×600, then you can scale it up to 1280×800 or higher (depending on your eyesight). The good thing about Newrez is that it does not overclock the actual hardware of your laptop, and instead, it builds an image with a higher resolution, which is located in a buffer. This image is then scaled to fit your screen for better visibility. This means that you are not constrained to standard resolutions anymore.

To get started, download and extract the Newrez script archive from the download link given at the end of this post, and copy the files (newrez and newrez-v) to ~/.Gnome2 –> Nautilus-Scripts (after hitting CTRL+H in the Home folder to reveal hitting directories, including the Gnome 2 directory). This will add the two scripts to the right-click context menu of your operating system. For example, if you are an Ubuntu user, then the script can be accessed from the Ubuntu context menu. Select the newrez script to change your resolution. The newrez-v script is for users who may not be able to run the newrez script. Selecting the script via the context menu will provide you with an option to choose a new resolution.

Please note that this script depends on the “xrandr –scale” option for creating a framebuffer at a chosen resolution, which can then be scaled to fit the screen. This requires xrandr version 1.3, and also a supported video driver. You can also try “xrandr -v” (in case the former does not work). It is also worth mentioning here that this script currently does not support “non-free” nVidia and ATI drivers, as they do not support xrandr 1.3.

Download Newrez

[via WML Cloud]

Use Global Hotkeys To Control iTunes With iTuneskeys

farshad — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:36:57 +0000

iTunes is a powerful media player, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital media files on a computer. It is also used for complete management and related operations for iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. iTunes can also connect to the iTunes Store, which allows users to purchase and download music, music videos, TV Shows, audio books, games, ringtones and more. Since it’s inception in 2001, it has become one of the most popular media apps for Mac, Windows and smartphone users. iTunesKeys is a system-tray utility, which lets you control iTunes with global hotkeys or via the tray icon menu, which runs in the background. You can control your playback actions, such as play, previous track, play, pause, stop, next, rewind and fast forward, adjust volume and rate items. You can even create a customized rating system for your tracks. iTunesKeys provides display track info on song change, including artwork, launches iTunes automatically and closes it at exit.

During installation, iTunesKeys provides you with the option to install the restore tray icon for the application. This option is disabled by default, if you would like to use this feature, then make sure that you check this option during the installation process. Once done, simply launch iTunesKeys and it will open both the system tray menu, as well as iTunes. You can view iTunes or track info, hide the tray icon, move to previous/next track, play, pause, stop tracks, increase, reduce volume, toggle shuffle, rate items, create custom rating system, and exit (iTunes and/or iTunesKeys) from the system tray menu. To configure Global hotkeys, go to Options.

From here, you can edit the attributes of the Global hotkeys, so that you can quickly mange your iTunes tracks. For example, you can select the display time for tracks, select a display position, enable/disable system tray icon for a specific key, etc.

The developer has mentioned that many users have complained that iTunesKeys is crashing for them. For this reason, he has provided instructions for running it with the /regserver option, which seems to fix this problem. For example, if iTunes is installed in “C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe”, head over to Start –> Run and enter the following:

C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe /regserver

Hit OK, and things should be working. During testing, we did not experience any crashes by running iTunesKeys from a desktop shortcut and other conventional methods. iTuneskeys works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. It requires .NET Framework 2.0 or higher, which is automatically installed for Windows XP users.

Download iTunesKeys

PomodoroApp: Advanced Pomodoro Tool With Detailed Progress Reports

farshad — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:54:12 +0000

Pomodoro is a technique for productivity enhancement, which is meant to help you focus on completing tasks within a set time frame. Assuming “time is money”, what better way to utilize this asset than to use the Pomodoro technique. We have previously covered a number of Pomodoro related applications, such as Tomighty and CherryTomato. This time we have a more advanced Pomodoro application for you, known as PomodoroApp. With the help of this application, you can set a timer to help you complete a task within a set period of time. It has been designed to help you organize your tasks and to improve personal productivity using the Pomodoro Technique. The tool provides options for task management, GTD (getting things done) planning, tracking Pomodoro, track interruptions, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly stats and task integration.

Interestingly, the first task in the application is about getting started with the PomodoroApp. The task is striked out when you add your first task to the list. You can add various tasks, and make tasks available (e.g. 2 today) according to the current day. To start calculating a task, select it from the task list and add it to the to do list.

This will add the task to the list and make the Pomodoro icon red. You can mark the task as complete anytime by checking it from your to do list. To add additional Pomodoros for the task (e.g., for repetitive tasks), double click the red Pomodoro icon and select a number.

You can view a report of your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly task progress via the Report section. This section contains four separate sub-tabs, which deliver extensive reports for Pomodoros, including information about estimated, completed, discarded and interrupted tasks. Each task is labeled with a completion date, subject and the estimated, completed, interrupted and discarded Pomodoros in the following row.

Unfortunately, we did not find any reminders from this application during the testing process, and it appears that the tasks are recorded when you manually uncheck them. It will be quite beneficial if a pop-up message can be provided to end users to show the remaining time for the completion of a task. This, of course, will also require the integration of a timer. It is worth mentioning here that PomodoroApp has both a paid and free version. The free versions allows you to input only 100 tasks or activities, and you can bypass this limitation by upgrading to the premium version. PomodoroApp works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download PomodoroApp

OEM Configurator: Change Default OEM Settings In Windows System Properties

farshad — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:11:08 +0000

OEM Configurator is a portable application by AskVG that allows you to personalize the information in the Windows System Properties section. This eliminates the need of any kind of manual registry editing, and allows setting accurate naming resolution and associated settings according to a standard method. Although such changes can be made individually as well, OEM Configurator, however, makes it quite easy to configure the required text, logo (e.g., company logo) etc, to set all parameters automatically for the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) information. Changing the OEM Configurations can help people accurately label computers according to the right naming convention. Such settings can help easily identify computers in a domain via the Active Directory. More after the break.Naming resolutions are not only necessary, but imperative for the smooth functionality and configuration of networks in large organizations. For example, if a row of computers is named as C1-W1, C2 W1, etc and the second row is labelled as D1-W2, D2-W2, then it might be required to run a batch script to shutdown all computers at the end of the day from a specific row. Assuming the script needs to be run in the C1 row, and a computer in the D row is labelled as C, then the wrong computer can be shut down, perhaps for a second shift employee. Furthermore, maintaining a standard for labeling computers in Windows System Properties is essential for keeping uniformity for how all system are marked, according to company policy.

Once OEM Configurator is launched, you can change the various items within System Properties, such as the owner’s name, processor type, product ID, computer’s name and computer description. Click Save New Information for the changes to take effect. To revert the changes anytime, click Restore Default.

What makes OEM Configurator useful, is it’s ability to set any desired text string or numbers as Product for your computer. The selected information is replaced in Windows System Properties window, and below is a sample of the output that you can get with the help of this tool.

You can also make additional changes from OEM Info. The extra entries include manufacturer, model, phone number, support hours, website and logo. Such detailed information can help you accurately label company computers according to the services that it offers to customers. You can even preview these additional changes before enforcing them, via Preview button.

OEM Configurator works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download OEM Configurator (version 2)

Create Video Slideshows With Transitions In HD Using Slideshow Creator

farshad — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:22:22 +0000

There was a time when one might have found it difficult to make high definition video slideshows, or might even have required hiring a professional for the job. Thanks to free applications, this task can now be performed by all kinds of novice and expert users in just a few easy steps. Slideshow Creator is a free application for creating video slideshows from still images, with transition effects and background audio. Most of the options in this application are quite self explanatory, and make it easy to create picture slideshows for users who may not have any kind of video editing experience.

With Slideshow Creator, you can create the most exciting photo based slide shows from multiple image and other formats, including JPEG, JPG, BMP, ICO, EMF and WMF. To create a slideshow, just add some photos, comments and background music to create your very own video slideshow. Images can be added from the Photos section, whereas you can either add audio files from the Audio Files tab or drag them to the bottom pane of Slideshow Creator.

Other than photos and audio, you can also add a wide range of transition effects between the photos. The program provides powerful transitions effects, which gives your standalone slideshow a more professional look. The available transition effects include cross fade, fade out then in, wipe left to right, wipe right to left, wipe top to bottom, wipe bottom to top, slide from top left, slide from top right, slide from bottom left, slide from bottom right, push left to right, slide out left to right, push right to left, slide out right to left, push top to bottom, slide out top to bottom, push bottom to top, slide out bottom to top, random points, random boxes, wipe out from center, wipe into center, expand out from center, circular wipe from center and many more.

You can either add each image individually to the video by selecting and clicking the Add to movie (+) option, or click the adjacent button (Add all photos to movie option) to randomly add all images to the movie at once. Once done, you can save the project in the application’s native SSP format, or click Make Video File to convert it to video format.

The video slideshow can be saved in various video formats, including Full HD. The available formats include MKV, AVI and WMV. You can also give a name to your slideshow and select a quality level (Best, Good or Poor)

This way, you can easily create attractive slideshows from your picture collection.

Slideshow Creator works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, on both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

Download Slideshow Creator

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