AddictiveTips » Windows

DiskBench: Real-Life Hard Disk Benchmark Tool With Multithread Support

Aatif Khan — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:33:16 +0000

Disk benchmarking and information tools are a dime a dozen, and you’ll find so many of them out there that it becomes to make the right pick. We at AddictiveTips have ourselves covered a lot of such tools, generic and specific both, such as DHE Drive Info for detailed hard drive statistics, AS SSD Benchmark particularly for SSD drives, and even a guide on performing benchmark testing on your hard disk, USB drive and optical drive. The problem with most of these tools, however, remains the fact that they present you with synthetic benchmarking numbers, figures that you are most unlikely to meet in real life situations.

For a more realistic and accurate measure of how your disks will perform in real time under stress, try DiskBench. It is a portable Windows application that uses your current filesystem to save, read and manipulate data. Details after the break.

The interface of the application presents 5 tabs, namely Copy File, Copy Directory, Create File, Read File and Create File Batch. Each tab caters to the normal file system operations, and handles all read/write functions with ease. What sets DiskBench apart from others is the fact that it utilizes files already present on your disk, and plays with the file system in its current state. Hence, if your file system is fragmented, for instance, the performance will be lower, and vice versa.

Usage is as simple as it gets, without any options to configure. For copy file test, for example, mark a source file, select a destination to which it will be copied, and choose whether to delete the copied file after the test is completed. Hit Start Bench and you’re good to go.

The bottom panel will populate with results from your current benchmark test, and will list the type of test, the size of file being used, time taken and transfer rate. All these values represent real time statistics, giving you a more accurate picture of how your hard disks are performing for certain operations. DiskBench supports multithread operations, as well.

It should be noted, however, that once you start a benchmark, the application goes into a halt until the test is finished. The lack of a progress bar is also something inhibiting, but we can’t complain much about it, since the app delivers what it promises. DiskBench is portable, takes around 25MB of memory, and should work on all versions of Windows, provided you have .NET Framework 4.0 or higher installed.

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PrintMyFont: List, Print & Compare All Installed Fonts On Your System

Fawad — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:04:51 +0000

Over time, lot of fonts are collected on your hard drive, specially if you are a web developer or a designer. When you want to use one for something, you can get confused from the long list. What you usually do is select your text and change the font again and again to check how it will look, and are not able to compare them properly. To get an overview of all the fonts installed on your machine, you can use PrintMyFonts. It is a portable application that lists all your installed fonts, as well as the arbitrary fonts found on your hard disk. This application has a lot of utility for web developers and designers who have to use a lot of different fonts while working. More on PrintMyFonts after the break.

The application allows you to type text and preview how it will look in different fonts just with a single click. The complete font list is displayed on your screen, and you can save the list in different formats, including PDF, DOC, DOCX, and also in image file formats, such as BMP, JPG and GIF. The best thing is that you can enter custom text for comparing the different types of fonts. Moreover, the application allows you to directly print them on paper. By default. the print example lists alphabets, digits, as well as characters in all the available fonts, but you can choose something yourself if you want to compare a particular line or set of characters. You can view all the fonts installed on your system, or just the ones in a particular folder or drive.

The Advanced Settings dialog accessible from the Tool menu allows you to specify default system settings, such as Number Fonts, Print Name of Font, Print Directory Path (if printed from folder), Orientation of paper while printing, Font Size and Style, Margins etc.

PrintMyFont works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7,

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Scup: Cross-Platform Batch Audio Track Uploader For SoundCloud

Aatif Khan — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:23:37 +0000

Established in 2007, SoundCloud is arguably the most popular online audio distribution platform for collaboration, promotion and distribution of audio content by artists and music promoters. While the web version of the platform is a no brainer for anyone who is familiar with the service, we don’t usually come across a lot of desktop applications catering to SoundCloud. For that reason, when we stumbled across Scup (short for SoundCloud Uploader), we considered it worthy of being taken for a spin. In its essence, Scup is an Adobe AIR-based, cross-platform application that lets you upload multiple tracks to your SoundCloud account and create a set on the fly. The application supports specifying all necessary parameters, such as genre, set and track types, license, record label etc, making your sets ready for publishing in every sense.

When launched for the first time, Scup will present you with an authentication box, requiring connection with your SoundCloud account. Hit the Yes please, move ahead button to launch the authentication page in your default browser. If you are not logged into SoundCloud at present, do so at this point.

The browser pane will ask you for a confirmation of the operation, after which you will be given a unique authentication code. Enter that in Scup, and your account should be linked. In our experience, copy/pasting the code didn’t work, and you’ll need to manually key it in for Scup to recognize.

With authentication out of the way, you will be greeted by Scup’s main interface. Please note that this interface is all that is to this application, as there are no options or customizations. Everything that you get in this interface should cater to all your SoundCloud uploading needs, and you can not only batch upload tracks, but also specify their parameters, such as the genre, set and track type, license version, keywords, record label, release number, release date, EAN/UPC and buying link for the set.

To begin, drap and drop audio files over Scup and define the parameters for the whole set. Some fields under More Options are text entries, while others will let you select one from the drop-down menus. As soon as you drop files, they will start uploading to your SoundCloud account.

You may also configure these parameters for individual tracks by clicking the arrow next to each file’s name in the list. This will expand the view, bringing the same fields for individual tracks. Scup will even let you add album art to your set, making it ready for publishing in almost every sense. The bottom panel of the application lets you control settings such as sharing, making originals downloadable and allowing 128 kbps streaming.

As with all Adobe AIR applications, Scup has a really pleasing outlook. The application is quite user-friendly, and since it is based on an open platform, it will work on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, provided you have Adobe AIR installed. Testing was done on Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit version.

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Log In To Multiple Skype Accounts On PC Startup With Skype Launcher

Fawad — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:42:03 +0000

Skype provides its users with one of the best audio call, video call and instant messaging services. Skype’s usefulness is not limited only to communication but also offers a host of other functions. You can also use Skype for screen sharing and sending files to your contacts (even though I myself hate to use the Skype file transfer service). Apart from these built-in features, plugins and third party applications also extend the utility of Skype to greater levels by providing users with tools and extensions that integrate with Skype and perform various functions. Do check out some of the awesome features and tools to supercharge your Skype experience. These extended capabilities make Skype a utility not only for using in homes and personal interaction, but also for educational and professional purposes. Skype Launcher is an application for Windows that allows you to log in with multiple Skype accounts at a time on one PC.

The application’s usage is pretty simple. Just download the application and add the Skype addresses that you require to login on system startup. In the Skype Launcher Configuration window (accessible from the start menu folder of Skype Launcher), you may add multiple accounts and specify settings, such as Delay Launch on Boot, Disable Notice Autologin, Use Alternative Login, Wait For Login Complete, Force Workaround For Skype, Double Timeouts etc.

When you run the application, Skype Launcher will login all your accounts one by one with the specified delay. You will receive notifications on your screen for every account being logged in.

Skype Launcher works on all 32-bit and 64-bit version of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

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Easily Create & Manage Cascading Context Menus With Argument Support

Fawad — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:01:18 +0000

The right click context menu allows us to greatly reduce the number of clicks by providing us with shortcuts to our favorite and most used applications. This decreases the amount of time spent on navigating to and then opening programs, and increases our productivity. By default, Windows provides you with some basic global as well as format specific options in the right click menu, such as changing view, accessing the properties and copy/cut/paste for files and folders. Previously, we have covered some very good context menu editors, such as Context Menu Editor, feature specific context menu editors like New menu Editor (only for adding and removing objects from the New context menu), and additional menus in the context menu, including Moo0 RightClicker. Today, we are adding another portable application to the list of context menu editors called Right Click Cascading Menu Creator, which provides users with the simplest method to add and manage cascading menus to the right click context menu.

The application allows you to add files, folders and application shortcuts to the context menu with cascading. You can add all the shortcuts to the same menu, or create multiple menus depending on your requirement. Moreover, you can use custom icons for each cascading menu and application shortcut added through the application.

The interface has File and Tools menus at the top, while Add Cascading Menu, Edit Menu, Remove Menu, Add File, Add Folder, Edit Item and Remove Item buttons and a drop down menu to toggle the Mode between Simple and Advanced is available below it. To add a cascading menu, select Add Cascading Menu from the top, enter a name, and click Add Menu.

To add a shortcut to a pre-existing cascading menu, right click it and select Add file from the menu. Note that if Simple mode is selected, you can add shortcuts just by specifying their name and path, where as the Advanced mode allows you to also add Arguments to the shortcut.

All the added cascading menus and their corresponding items are instantly accessible from the right-click menu.

Right Click Cascading Menu Creator is available as both installable and portable versions, and works on Windows 7.

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mpTrim: Remove Silence & Noise From MP3 Files And Normalize Volume

Aatif Khan — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:48:14 +0000

Trimming MP3 files may not be something you’ll need daily, but a fair share of users out there may find a need, from time to time, to cut through certain portions of an MP3 file. Perhaps you recorded a meeting, or are a journalist who captured the audio for an interview or conference call, or maybe you recorded a music track that has some unwanted silence or background noise in the beginning. Then, there might be instances where you may want to create a ringtone out of your favorite song, or just normalize the volume of your music collection. For all these purposes, and more, mpTrim is a nifty solution. This lightweight, portable app is a simple and easy to use MP3 editor that can help improve your MP3 collection by trimming unwanted parts, adjusting volume (normalization), adding fade-in and fade-out, and more. Details after the jump.

Most music files contain some junk or digital silence at the beginning or end of the track. While not really a problem for most users, this silence is used in audio CDs to separate tracks from one another. mpTrim works by looking for actual MPEG-audio frames, discarding everything else, thus leaving the user behind with an absolutely clean MP3 file. Not only that, but this software can also handle analog silence, or noise, which is caused by very low volume frames in the MP3 file. mpTrim can handle those as well, and quite nicely, in our experience.

When you launch the application’s EXE, a plain-looking window is presented, with Open, Save!, Save As, Close, Options, About and Exit! buttons on tip, and Information, Trim Specifications and Volume Control panels below it.

To load an MP3 file for processing, hit Open and you’ll be allowed to browse your file system for the target MP3 file. mpTrim supports ID3 tags, and will populate the information section if tags are available for the said track. Please note that the free version does not support batch operation, and you can only process one file at a time. When you have loaded a file, specify the section you want to trim either in terms of time, or as MPEG frames. The application will let you preview your trimming before processing it using the play controls, and will even show the disk space that you will save by performing the trim. Volume controls are available at the end, which will allow you to either manually specify the normalization in decibels, or use the Auto feature to let mpTrim make the decision for you. You may similarly add the fade in and fade out effects from bottom left panel. Once done, hit Save to overwrite the target file, or Save As to keep the trimming as a separate MP3.

The Options button at the top brings the preferences dialog, offering a plethora of customizable parameters (which was, indeed, surprising for an app of this size).There are various tabs separating different options, including File, Advanced, Silence, Silence2. Volume, Preview, ID3 tag, Cue, Batch and Batch2.

Options offered give you full control over how you preview your files with mpTrim, how the application itself behaves, how silence is inserted, what the ID3 tags would look like in the trimmed MP3, and loads more. Please note that the batch options are not applicable to this version, and will only work for PRO flavor of the application.

On the interface front, mpTrim offers nothing fancy – it’s as plain as they can get. The functionality perspective, however, is an entirely different story, and the huge number of configurable parameters make this tool a remarkable one for manipulating MP3 files. Add to the mix the facts that mpTrim is portable and blazing fast in its operation, and you get a pretty solid deal. The application can handle VBR MP3 files as well, and should work fine with high-bitrate audio tracks of up to 7 minutes without a glitch.

mpTrim works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, supporting both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

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Resize Images & Apply Effects In Batch Operation With Fotosizer

Fawad — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:27:30 +0000

Image resizing is very important especially for people who develop websites, as they have to upload images of different sizes to different sections of the web page. Larger size means that the image will take more space, more time to upload and consequently increase the loading time of the web page for users. Other than that, if you are a fan of upload your pictures to Facebook or any other social network, resizing them will greatly speed up the uploading process. Previously, we have covered a lot of image resizing applications for Windows, such as Plastiliq ImageResizer, Shrink O’Matic and ImBatch. Today, we have another image resizing application called Fotosizer, which allows you to shrink image files, enabling you to quickly prepare your image collections for publishing on the web. The application supports TIF, JPG, PNG, BMP, TGA and GIF image formats. More on Fotosizer after the break.

The developer has listed the following features of Fotosizer on the product page.

Choose to resize by percentage of width and height
Choose to set custom width and height
Maintain aspect ratio
Choose where the resized images will be saved
Change image quality
Parameterised output filenames: Choose the format of the output filenames using parameters such as new image width/height, current date, number of image in the list being resized
“Auto-save” of settings on exit
Resize portrait and landscape photos at the same time
Resize quickly and easily using a preset list of sizes including iPod, iPhone, and Sony PSP screen sizes
Change Print DPI settings

Moreover, the application allows you to copy image metadata after resizing, lets you do batch rotation, has multiple photo effects including Sepia, Black & white and Negative.

To resize image, simply drag and drop them over the interface to add them to the list. Now, from the right side, choose the required settings, such as custom size or percentage of original size, destination folder, output format, and settings for applying different effects to the images.

Open the Option settings menu from the right side to specify the Effects, Rotation and other settings for the selected images. Click Start when all settings are done.

The Option dialog box (accessible from top-right) lets you choose the language and image types for adding to the application.

Fotosizer has a memory foot print of 7.5 MB and works on all 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.

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How To Backup Files To BitLocker-Enabled Virtual Hard Disk [Beginner's Guide]

Usman — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:59:40 +0000

Microsoft’s VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) format is widely used to contain and run guest operating systems using Microsoft virtualization software, MS Virtual PC. Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows 7 natively supports creating and mounting virtual hard disk using Disk Management utility. Not only does it create MBR partitions, it also allow creating GUID partition on VHD to store large amount of data. With Windows 7, you no longer need an additional tool to attach VHD files for accessing virtual hard disk data and backing up files and folders to virtual hard disk file. When you attach a virtual hard disk file, you can access and modify its content just like the way you use physical hard drive’s volumes. Since Windows 7 provides all disk-related features with attached virtual hard drive, you can use it as a secured backup storage. In this post, we will guide you through the process of creating a virtual hard disk and encrypting it with BitLocker to securely backup files and folders.

Performing disk management tasks require you to login to Windows as administrator. So, make sure that you have required administrative privileges for creating a new hard disk volume. First off, open Computer Management console from Computer right-click context menu, and navigate to Storage –> Disk Management.

In order to create a virtual hard disk, select Create VHD from Action menu. It will open a dialog, asking you to specify the output location of VHD file and its size. Windows 7 also allows you to specify the format of virtual hard drive that you want to create; choose either Fixed or Dynamically expanding format. Once done, click OK to create a virtual hard disk.

Once the virtual hard disk is created, you need to initialize it before formatting the drive. Right-click the Disk to select Initialize Disk option.

It will now ask you to choose the partition style – MBR or GPT. The Master Boot Record disk formatting style allows booting from the disk, whereas the GPT style is used for large storage mediums. We recommend selecting MBR partition style, since it’s being used widely, and supports previous versions of Windows. Clicking OK will start initializing the virtual hard disk.

When disk is initialized, you need to format the drive to store data. Right-click the newly created VHD to start a simple volume wizard, which asks you to specify the drive letter, file system, allocation unit size, and volume label.

After formatting the drive, an auto-play dialog will pop-up (if not disabled), indicating that you can now use the virtual hard disk for storing data.

Now, you can backup the files and folders on virtual hard drive. As mentioned earlier, Windows 7 lets you perform all basic and advance disk-related operations over the virtual hard disk, you can encrypt the drive using Windows 7 native BitLocker encryption utility. After you’ve backed up the required files and folders to virtual hard drive, right-click the attached virtual drive, and select Turn on BitLocker from right-click context menu.

This will start BitLocker Drive Encryption wizard, asking you to enter the password for unlocking the drive. It also lets you create recovery key file, which helps you recover data from locked drive when you forget the password. Once key file is generated, it will start encrypting the virtual hard drive.

It must be noted that Windows 7 automatically detaches the virtual hard drive on system reboot, and therefore, you have to attach it each time you log in to Windows from Disk Management console. Once attached, it will prompt you to enter the BitLocker password to unlock the drive. However, if you find it laborious to open Disk Management console just to attach a virtual hard drive, install VHD Attach, an application that lets you attach and detach virtual hard drive from right-click context menu. The application allows adding upto 4 virtual hard disk-related options to Windows right-click context menu including Attach, Detach, Attach read-only, and Detach drive. You can choose which options to add while installing the application.

Once installed, you no longer have to open Disk Management to attach the drive. Just right-click the VHD file, and select Attach. Likewise, when you want to detach the virtual hard drive, save all the changes, and select the Detach option.

Apart from attaching and detaching VHD files from context menu, you can also view detailed information about virtual hard disk including File size, Virtual Size, Block Size, Vendor ID, Device ID, Creation timestamp, Disk geometry (number of cylinders, heads and sectors), disk type (fixed or dynamic).Just launch the application, and either drag the VHD file over the interface or use Open option on toolbar to list all the available details.

The application also enables you to auto-mount the selected virtual hard disk on system startup. Just select Not auto-mounted option on toolbar, and it will automatically mount the VHD file on Windows logon. VHD Attach works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, provided you have .NET Framework 3.5 or higher installed.

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DHE Drive Info: Portable Tool To View Detailed Hard Drive Statistics

Fawad — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:34:53 +0000

Preventing hard drives from failures and crashes can avert the loss of important data, but assessing the health of your hard disk manually can be time consuming. When a hard disk is working, temperatures increase during processing and read/write operations. Heavy applications, such as virtual machines, put a lot of stress on the hard disk. DHE Drive Info is a portable application for Windows that lets you view the detailed information about connected hard disks according to their partitions. The application has options to view the basic information, S.M.A.R.T. data, S.M.A.R.T. Logs, Control different settings of the hard disk, view Hidden Areas and access the Sector Browser. Moreover, the system tray of DHE Drive Info shows the current temperature of the hard disk. Read on to find out more about DHE Drive Info.

The application has basic hard disk information, including size, number of partitions, Windows version, CPU name and clock speed etc, at the top. The Name, Type, Size, Serial Number and Status appear in the middle, while 6 tabs for accessing different types of extensive information and hard drive settings are available at the bottom.

The 6 tabs at the bottom, namely Information, S.M.A.R.T., S.M.A.R.T. Logs, Control, Hidden Areas and Sector Browser, let you view the extended information about the connected hard drives. For example, the S.M.A.R.T tab details information including Temperature, Value, Threshold, Worst, Raw, Type, Capabilities, Self-Tests etc.

This article does not cover all the features offered by the application, and the complete list can be checked out at the product page. DHE Drive Info has a memory foot print of around 5 MB, and works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

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Create Video Slideshows From Images In Seconds With PhotoPixar

Fawad — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:37:42 +0000

The basis of every social networking service is sharing. We share everything with the world and our friends, including images, videos, articles, our own thoughts etc, and comment on things shared by others. Whether this change in the way we interact is for the better or for worse is a debatable topic, because on one hand, people have begun sharing a lot more than they used to, but on the other, they now meet a lot less than they used to. So, there is an increasing gap in actual, interpersonal social contact. Social networking services like Facebook and Google+, and the now obsolete MySpace and Orkut, have been mostly used for one thing – Photo Sharing. These days, pictures of any event, both important and unimportant, are uploaded to Facebook almost in real time. PhotoPixar is an application for Windows that lets you create video slideshows of photo albums in minutes with effects, audio and captions.

Creating albums with PhotoPixar is a three step process. In the first step, you are required to import the images that you want to include in the album. Either navigate to them from the Add photos button, or just drag and drop them onto the interface.

Once all images are added, select Add Templates from the left side to add a background and effects to images. The application provides you with various effects, such as leaves, bubbles, dragonflies, butterflies etc, and a selection of backgrounds and frames. Backgrounds and Effects and be changed from the bar at the right side. If you want to include a background track to the video slideshow, select one by clicking Add Music.

Once you are satisfied with the background and effect, choose Publish Album from the left side, and click Save to finish the process. Select Upload to upload the album on PhotoPixar’s (accessible from a link) server, or click the Facebook icon to share it with your friends.

Creating albums with PhotoPixar is really easy, and and it doesn’t take more than 1 minute to create an album if you don’t waste a lot of time choosing the background and effects. PhotoPixar has a memory footprint of 103 MB, and works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

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Dashlane Is Your Personal Internet Assistant, An Alternative To LastPass

Usman — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:09:14 +0000

When it comes to selecting a personal information and account password manager, there are numerous applications available at your disposal. For most users, who want a powerful, as well as simple, online password manager, LastPass is the obvious choice, while others keep their personal info and account credentials secured from external attacks using KeePass and 1Password. Today, we came across a personal internet assistant and online accounts manager called Dashlane, which allows users to securely manage personal information and online passwords. Packed with form filler and automatic login features, Dashlane provides one-stop solution for accessing and managing personal information and online accounts credentials. The application includes a comprehensive set of features and tools to help you easily organize online account user logins and passwords, enabling you to automatically fill the user login details, including username and password, and add new user logins without having to bring up the dashboard. Details to follow after the jump.

Like LastPass, it prompts users to fill the user login forms using pre-defined personal and contact information. Additionally, it lets you select the user account, which you want to use to login to an online service. For instance, if you’re using multiple Google accounts, it allows selecting the account you want to use. Unlike other password managers, Dashlane encrypts your personal info and accounts’ passwords with AES-256 on local machine, and then syncs your account details with its online server, so that you can access accounts database from anywhere. Since the synced information is encrypted using defined master password as a key, Dashlane management and dev team can’t access your personal information as well as saved user account login details.

Currently, it provides add-ons for only Firefox and Google Chrome. The web extension is quite similar to LastPass in terms of usage, i.e., when you open a login page, it looks for saved account details, and fills the input fields, allowing you to atomically login to the service. Dashlane parks itself in the system tray after being launched, enabling you to quickly enter the master password to login, and sync all the account details. The Dashboard presents numerous categories that help you efficiently organize the saved personal info and account details (usernames and passwords).

What makes it different from LastPass is its ability to categorize account details into various groups such as Mails, News, Banking, Entertainment, News, etc. Using categories, you can easily manage account details and passwords without having to manually search accounts from a massive account database; just select the category and then choose the account details you want to view or modify. For instance, you can put YouTube, DailyMotion and other video sharing websites’ account details into Entertainment category. When you want to change account details of any entertainment website, select Entertainment category and select the account you want to view.

Running it for the first time requires creating a Dashlane account. Just enter the email address to start the account creation wizard. You can also choose to enter your cell phone number to add an extra security layer to your account credentials.

The first step asks you to enter the master password, which will be used to log in to Dashlane’s account management console. To help you pick a strong master password, it provides a simple, yet unique strong password wizard. All you need is to enter a sentence with some numbers that you can easily remember. Once entered, it automatically generates a strong password based on the information you entered.

The next step requires you to re-enter the password. Once done, click OK.

The last step asks you to enable the synchronization feature to automatically sync your personal information and accounts user login details. Enabling this feature will automatically upload the information you add. However, if you don’t want to sync the account details, you can use Dashlane on your local machine only.

Once all account settings have been configured, it will sit in system tray, allowing you to log into Dashlane for managing both offline and online user accounts. Clicking the system tray icon will bring up login window, letting you enter Dashlane’s username and master password.

Dashlane adds an icon next to address bar in supported web browsers. Unlike Lastpass, it shows only two options Login/Logout and Open Dashlane (dashboard). It must be noted that if you’re using LastPass or any other password manager that supports exporting user account information in CSV format, you can import your user login details into Dashlane Dashboard.

It shows Log in as option on user login forms to let you quickly choose the account credentials you want to use to log in to service. For instance, if you’ve saved multiple Gmail logins, it shows all of them on Username and Password input fields to let you select the account you wish to log in.

When you manually fill out login details, it prompts you to save the entered information, so that you can use it later without having to enter the login, password and other details. While saving the login info, you can also pick the category of the website.

The Dashboard categorizes the secured information into 3 groups – Personal Data, Internet Account, and Internet Shopping. The Personal Data section lets you add contact information, shows all email addresses and other details that you used while creating the online accounts. The IDs and Payment tabs allow adding ID card number, Passport, Driver’s license, Social Security number & Tax numbers, and Credit/Debit and PayPal account details, respectively.

The Internet Accounts section holds Logins and Passwords, and Security dashboard. The former tab lets you view all of your saved accounts with options to modify the details, and especially categories. You can manually enter the login details of any online service by providing the website URL, username, password and other details.

Clicking the user account enables you to name the credential, change login, view & modify password text, and assign category to the credential.

Under Security dashboard, you will find all the saved accounts with password strength meter and info like number of times you used the password, and safety level. Clicking the small lock button shows the password text.

Purchases tab from Internet Shopping section helps you record all the online transaction details. You can easily view them from one window, without having to go through the hassle of searching your email account. When you make an online transaction, its dashboard asks you whether you want to save the information or not.

When you configure a new device/PC with Dashlane, it first sends a security code to your email, authenticating the access. This saves your Dashlane’s account information from unauthorized usage and external attacks. You have to enter the security code along with Master Password to configure the Dashlane on a new device.

In case, you want to remove the device from configured devices list. You can remotely access the Dashlane online dashboard via a browser, and remove the configured device. It also allows you to view your account credentials including website URL, username and password.

You can watch the video below to understand how some of its primary features work.

All in all, Dashlane offers a slew of features to easily manage online account credentials. With account management features similar to LastPass, it can quickly fill online forms, switch between saved account details, automatically enter necessary personal information, save online transactions, and organize all the account passwords under one hood. As of this writing, it’s is in closed beta testing phase, supporting Google Chrome and Firefox. According to official dev community, Internet Explorer support is in works, and will be added soon. Since it’s in private beta, you need to sign up with the service using email address to get invited.

It works on both Windows and Mac OS X. Testing was carried out on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

Download Dashlane

QTranslate: Hot Key Supported Text Translator & Text-to-Speech Utility

Fawad — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:55:10 +0000

When browsing through different websites, we often stumble upon text in a foreign language. Almost everyone knows about Google Translator and its usefulness when viewing web pages in another language, but wouldn’t it be easier if you could translate selected text without visiting Google Translator in your browser? If you are looking for an application that allows you to translate text between different languages, check out QTranslate. It is a portable application for Windows that not only lets you translate text to and from different languages, but also servers as a text-to-speech tool that also reads supported languages once they are translated. It supports multiple translation services, including Google Translate, Microsoft Translator, Promt, SDL, Yahoo! Babel Fish and Yandex Translate.

The application comes with some system wide hot key support. The hot key combinations and their functions are as follows:

Double Ctrl key tap –> To show the main window (with the translation of the selected text)

Ctrl + Q –> To translate the selected text and show it in the popup window

Ctrl + W –> To perform web search for the selected text

Ctrl + E –> To listen to the selected text

The main features of QTranslate, include text translation in any supported using any translation service, Back translation, replacing the selected text with its translation, spell checking, text-to-speech support, word suggest and autocomplete, history viewer to view previous translations and a virtual keyboard.

To translate text, simply copy the text in the top part of the interface, select the language which you want to translate the text into, and click Translate. The translated text will appear in the lower part of the interface. You can switch between different services from the bottom of the interface.

Right-click on its system tray icon and select Options to configure the Basic, Hot key, Internet, Services, Languages, Appearance and Exception settings of QTranslate.

QTranslate has a memory foot print of around 9 MB, and works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2008 Server, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

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[via ghacks]

TED Notepad: Editor With 312 Hotkey Supported Text-Processing Features

Fawad — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:14:19 +0000

Previously, we have covered a lot of Notepad replacement applications, such as Notepad7, Glass Notepad, Letterpress and EditPad. All of these have their own strengths and weaknesses; for instance, Glass Notepad has a transparent interface, Letterpress offers declarative customization and EditPad Lite provides you with a tabbed interface. TED Notepad is a portable tool that can be used as an alternative to Windows Notepad. It presents you with 312, easily-accessible, innovative text processing functions that allow you to save a lot of time when editing documents. Not only does it have a massive number of features, all of them can be accessed though hot key combinations, enabling you to quickly create and edit your document. Read on to find more.

TED Notepad can be used for both basic and advanced editing functions. In the Options menu, toggle Line Numbers and Line Lengths to view the paragraph count and number of letter per line, respectively. The Status bar at the bottom shows the position of the cursor and total Line Count, Columns, Position in terms of letters etc. All the data is updated in real time as you type.

A lot notable features are included in the Tools menu accessible from the top . It has sub categories to perform actions on the document related to the Case of letters, Line & Text management, Reverse, Sort, Wrap and Text Filters. For instance, from the Lines sub menu under Tools, you can apply indent and unindent to the lines, trim tail spaces and empty lines, shift left and right etc.

The application also has its own clipboard manager that lets you copy and paste up to 9 items simultaneously. To make the process of copying and pasting from clipboard faster than any other text editor or clipboard manager, TED Notepad has a different pre-assigned hot key for each of the 9 clipboard slots.

This is not the complete list of features offered by TED Notepad, and this article only covers the basic functionality of the application. The complete list can be found on the product page. TED Notepad is available in both installable and portable versions, and works on all 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.

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ShiftN Automatically Adjusts Vertical Line Distortion In Landscape/Building Photographs

Fawad — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:50:25 +0000

If you have a lot of images and photographs of buildings and landscapes, some of them might be tilted a little to the side. Converging lines in architectural images of tall buildings are a common fault that occurs due to the different perspective of the photographer and the camera lens while taking the picture. This makes the shots look unnatural when the vertical lines get distorted, even when using professional SLR cameras. This problem can be solved using special lenses designed for the job, but they are too expensive for everyone to afford. If you want your pictures to look professional and don’t have the resources to spend too much on photography equipment, try ShiftN. It is an application for Windows that automatically fixes the line distortion effect without forcing you to make any effort. More on ShiftN after the break.

The basic usage of the application is pretty simple. First, drag and drop your image into the main interface of the application. ShiftN will analyze the image and display the available EXIF information about it, such as its resolution and other parameters.

Once the image is loaded, click Automatic Correction button available at the top to apply line distortion correction on the images. If you are not satisfied with the results, click Re-optimize to align and correct the image again.

In our testing, the automatic correction feature worked very nicely, but if you want to configure the settings yourself, select Adjust Correction from the top to edit the Shift, Rotation, Distortion and Horizontal Shortening values of the image.

The Options menu at the top provides you with different settings to specify parameters, change application language and define type of output (JPEG, its Quality, BMP, TIFF, Trim Pictures Automatically, Sharpen Pictures etc)

ShiftN works on all 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.

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FireTower Monitors & Validates Auto-Run Entries Against Web Database

Fawad — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:28:40 +0000

With hundreds of new viruses being created each day, it is possible for your PC to get infected even if you have an antivirus installed on your system. The way most viruses work is that they create an auto run entry on your computer to ensure that they are executed whenever your system boots up. So, the virus will keep on doing what it is supposed to do, no matter how many times you restart your PC. Today, we have a tool called FireTower that can be a lot of help to you in tackling this issue. It is an application for Windows that performs an analysis of all existing auto-run settings and automatically validates the legitimacy of the auto-run entries through a web validation check. When the analysis is complete, all entries are displayed in different threat level categories. More of FireTower after the break.

Other than checking the auto-run settings of all existing applications and services, FireTower also works in real time, and alerts the user when any application or service tries to create an auto-run entry on the PC. The application has a very simple interface with tabs for different categories of entries, including General, WinLogon, Explorer, IE, Providers and Monitors, Services, Drivers and Startup Files. For each category, Entry Name, Command Line path, Company, Last Changed and Who Changed fields are available.

Under the Command Line field, click View to to open the Process Information dialog box. It lets you view extended details about the file, such as time stamps for Created, Modified and Accessed date, File Version Description etc. It also gives you the option to look up the file on the web validation tool.

Clicking the Lookup button in the Process Information dialog box opens up the File Analysis report of the selected file. It contains information about the file, such as its description, common facts and its variants and usual default locations in the system.

The application keeps working in real time, a notification pops up every time an application is detected attempting to change any settings in your system.

FireTower works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

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Aligner: Adjust Horizontal & Vertical Position Of Desktop Wallpaper

Fawad — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:23:21 +0000

If you are a fan of custom wallpapers, you must’ve noticed that most wallpapers do not match the aspect ratio of current resolution. Sometimes, the favorite part of your wallpaper gets cut from the background. A while back, we covered an application called BackGrounder, which allows you to easily scale and trim images, enabling you to create custom wallpapers. Today, we have another application , namely Aligner that lets you align the wallpaper on your desktop according to your preferences. You can use this application to choose the part of wallpaper you want to keep in the center of the screen. Moreover, it lets you move the wallpaper anywhere on the desktop, in Top, Bottom, Left and Right direction.

The application has a very simple interface. You can change the alignment of the wallpaper using two methods; it lets you specify the exact number of pixels that are to be used to move the wallpaper, or use sliders to change the position of the wallpaper. Aligner also provides you with a real-time preview of the changes being made to the position of the wallpaper. Once you’ve changed the position of the wallpaper, click OK to apply the changes.

The application works flawlessly, but we feel that it can be improved by introducing some simple functions, such as resizing the wallpaper, showing the complete wallpaper in the preview pane, and a selection box to select which part to show on the desktop. Aligner works on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

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SpinZip: Create ZIP Files With Custom File Count Or Archive Size

Fawad — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:58:20 +0000

SpinZip is a portable application for Windows that allows you to create ZIP files in three unique ways; User Specified Size, Specified Number of Files per ZIP, and One file per ZIP (auto-named). The application is developed for users who often need to send ZIP files via mail, and require selecting files manually from the source to prevent exceeding email attachment size limit. It can also come handy in situations where one wants to compress a large number of files without having to select them from multiple locations.

SpinZip lets you choose both source and target locations to create ZIP archives for specified files. Using the ZIP size limit feature, you can quickly send the files via email to others without having to worry about the attachment size limit.

It lets you create ZIP archives with either a specified number of files or a defined archive size. All you have to do is enter the source directory, the output directory, specify the Output mode, and click Generate. Extra options allow you to set compression level for the files on a scale of 0-9, apply filters for leaving out specific files from compression and applying a password to the ZIP archives. The Output Mode has 3 options, including By approximate zip file size, Specified number of files per zip, and One file per zip (Auto-named). You can also specify the Filename Prefix before creating an archive.

During testing, we used the application to make archives of 5 files. If you want the application to work flawlessly, make sure that all your files are stored in the root directory of your source folder. If there are a lot of subfolders for the application to scan, it can get a bit confusing as it takes a specified number of files that are to be archived from the parent folder, and then moves to subfolders.

SpinZip has a memory foot print of less than 1 MB and works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

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Get Windows 8 Start Screen & Lock Screen On Windows 7

Fawad — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:27:08 +0000

Previously, we have covered a lot of tools that bring the Windows 8 Metro UI elements to Windows 7, such as Metro7 (adds Metro Start Screen to Windows 7), Metro Sidebar (lets you add Windows 8 style sidebar to desktop), and Newgen (brings Windows 8 Metro Tiles to Windows 7 desktop). Today, we have an application called Windows 8 Start Screen Full, which adds Windows 8 Start Screen and Lock Screen to Windows 7. It also includes user-configurable tiles, Start Screen widgets, and shortcuts to Windows Media Player, My Documents, local drives and more. Although it doesn’t come packed with Window 8 native apps such as Socialite, News, Tweet@rama, Weather etc., it uses these applications’ tiles as widgets to let you configure social media accounts, RSS feed list, and access Gmail inbox. During installation, the application asks you to enter the Unique Product Key, click the corresponding button to get your Unique Product Key, and then paste the provided Unique User ID.

Once the installation is completed, it will start automatically. As mentioned earlier, it doesn’t include Windows 8 Metro apps such as Socialite, News, Paint, Tweet@rama etc. You can use these apps tiles to view your RSS feed, configure social media account and view Twitter timeline. For example, Socialite tile lets you configure Facebook account to view updates on the tile. While some of the widgets run directly within the tiles, others only open the relevant URL in your default browser.

Apart from Start Screen, it provides you with Metro Control Panel (accessible from Start Screen). It allows you to personalize the Lock Screen, change the User Tile image and toggle the Network Access of widgets placed on the Start Screen.

It must be noted that the application doesn’t support Windows 8 navigation feature, which lets users navigate between the Full-Screen apps, Start Screen, Desktop and other opened application windows. Windows 8 Start Screen works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Windows 8 Start Screen

Paste Text Like: Change Format, Text Case & Remove Blank Spaces From Clipboard

Fawad — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 10:27:03 +0000

We have covered numerous clipboard tools in the last few months, including Clipboard Magic, ClipX, and Ethervane Echo for Windows, and rePasta and TetBom for Mac OS X. Most clipboard managers are capable of recording multiple clipboard entries, letting you keep spamming that Ctrl+C before pasting the required text anywhere. Last year, we covered Dolphin Text Menu, an on-screen text cleaner that performs a range of text-specific operations over any text editor, including append and prepend text to lines, delete blank lines, change text case etc. Today, we have an open source tool for you called Paste Text Like, which lets you perform all these functions over the clipboard content. Read on to find out more about Paste Text Like.

The application provides you with a Paste Menu (accessible via Win+V hotkey), containing options to paste the text in unformatted form and in a specified text case (Upper Case, Lower Case, Proper Case, and Invert Case). You can remove double spaces, blank lines, paste text like File Name and include the current date to copied text. It also give you a small analysis of the copied text with information about total number of lines and characters.

Something that I really liked about Paste Text Like is that it doesn’t interfere with the default Windows clipboard. It has its separate hotkey that enables you to continue using the default clipboard. The Settings (accessible from system tray menu) lets you configure the Note Hotkey and change the short and long date format.

Paste Text Like is a portable application that works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

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RedNotebook: Journal With Calendar Navigation, Custom Templates & Word Cloud

Fawad — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 08:52:29 +0000

Just a few days ago, we covered a cross-platform task manager named Conqu, which allows you to manage the tasks by providing a comprehensive set of features, including Quick Add, Tags, Dates etc. Today, we stumbled across an open source application called RedNotebook. It is not exactly a task manager, but more of a journal where you can record just about anything you want. You can write pending tasks, note down important events or use it as an everyday e-diary. It includes calendar, customizable templates, save and export options and a word cloud. You can manage the entries via tag feature, which helps you quickly search the journal entry you want to view or edit. More on RedNotebook after the break.

The interface is divided into four sections; Calendar and Word Cloud in the left, middle pane is for viewing and editing text, while tag editor is present in the right pane.

You can either create a new template for noting down the tasks, or load and edit an existing template. Each template can be saved with a different name, such as Family, Work, Meeting, Call etc., allowing you to easily differentiate between each type of entries. The Format drop-down menu has simple editing options, such as Bold, Italics, Underline and Strikethrough, while the Insert menu lets you add text items with picture, file, link, horizontal line (splitter), and date and time stamps etc.

RedNotebook gives you detailed statistics about the document, which include total words, lines, letters, distinct words, edited days, letter and more. These statistics can be viewed from Journal menu. To work in a distraction-free environment, just enable Full-Screen mode by pressing F11.

The Preferences is accessed from Edit menu. It lets you specify the default Font Size, Date/Time Format, words to include and exclude from word cloud.

Other noteworthy features include:

Tagging
Format your text bold, italic or underlined
Insert Images, files and links to websites
Links and mail addresses are recognized automatically
Spell Check on Linux
Live-Search
Automatic saving
Backup to zip archive
Word Clouds with most often used words and tags
Templates
Export the journal to PDF, HTML, Latex or plain text
The data is stored in plain text files, no database is needed
Translated into more than 20 languages

RedNotebook is a cross-platform application that words on Windows, Mac OS X, Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian.

Download RedNotebook

Fiddler: Monitor HTTP Traffic For Any Application & Filter Data Tracking

Usman — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:59:57 +0000

Ever wanted to know which servers the HTTP requests traverse while reaching a specific web server? Fiddler is a comprehensive web debugger for Windows, which tracks and logs all HTTP connections, and data exchanged between your network interface and internet. The application gives insight into files, connections, cookies and other objects that were exchanged during each session. Apart from inspecting the HTTP traffic, it also sets breakpoints and manipulates both incoming and outgoing data to let you view the data that is being downloaded and uploaded. Moreover, the application is capable of tracking traffic from all applications that support proxy connections, processes, and especially web browsers to view send and receive requests. Additionally, it can be used to debug internet traffic from mobile devices including Android, Windows Phone & iPhone.

To begin debugging traffic, launch the application and open any supported program to start monitoring. The right side pane helps you view connections, files, images, errors and other objects that are being sent and received, whereas the main window shows the statistics of selected object. By default, it inspects all type of traffic that passes through the network interface, but you can use built-in Filters feature to monitor only required types of objects. It creates a timeline for network traffic, logs each activity, and shows Headers, Web Forms, HexView, Auth, Cookies and Raw data from Inspectors tab.

The Statistics shows request count, total bytes sent and received, DNS Lookup, HTTP/HTTPS handshake and TCP/IP connect time, Along with this information, you will also get to see estimated worldwide performance statistics, which helps you compare your results with others. The AutoResponder allows you to create, view and reorder rules. It requires adding URIs to create a rule. Once created, check Enable automatic responses option to begin auto-responding. For each object, it creates a transfer timeline on a Waterfall diagram, allowing you to view info about each entry.

From toolbar, you can add comments to selected session, remove session from the list, resume paused sessions, and enable/disable Stream and Decode modes. The Stream mode is used to skip all breakpoints and stream only HTTP responses, while the Decode mode decompresses traffic for easy viewing.

Fiddler saves all sessions in a history, but you can use Keep Session drop-down menu to select the maximum number of sessions to keep. Alongside Keep Sessions, it presents Any Process icon, which when dragged over a window starts showing traffic from that window. For instance, if you want to view traffic from Google Chrome, drag the icon over Chrome window, and it starts showing traffic from only Google Chrome.

Fiddler is an all-in-one HTTP traffic tracking tool that supports all types of applications. If you want to configure Android, Windows Phone, and iOS device to use Fiddler, check out Configuring Clients section here. It works on both client and server editions of Windows.

Download Fiddler

music2pc: Download Music From A Library Of Over 100 Million MP3 Songs

Fawad — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:55:37 +0000

Whether listening to music while working increases or decreases productivity is a much debated topic. According to some studies, listening to music seems to impair task concentration as well as the ability to remember, while others believe it helps in drowning out the background noise, thus resulting in more concentration and better work performance. Personally, I also listen to music while working, and in my opinion, it allows more concentration as long as the track is not too distracting. In the end, its all about what you are used to while working. If you belong to group that listens to music while working, we have a music downloader for you today. music2pc is a portable application for Windows that allows you to download your favorite music from a massive library of over 100 million MP3 songs.

The application lets you search and download MP3 songs from the internet. According to the product page, there is a library of over 100 million MP3 songs. The songs are downloaded at high speeds, and can be played from the application once the download is complete. The developer lists the following features of the application:

Download over 100 million mp3 songs with unmatchable speed, best output quality
Safe, non-bit torrent and non-peer-to-peer sharing method
Find any music easily, only with the song title, artist name, album or edition
Safe to install and run, no malware, no ads, no viruses
The hugest selection of publicly available tracks
Search the live, piano, guitar or cover versions of your favorite songs
Compatible with all portable devices: iPad, iPhone, PSP, cell phone, mp3 player etc.
Multi-thread downloading, download multiple songs at the same time
Download the hottest songs across all genres, from electronic to religious, mainstream to indie, hip-hop to classical, etc.
Simple and intuitive interface ensures you to easily get any music you want

Downloading a song is very simple, just enter the artist’s name or track title in the search bar and click Search button at the top of the interface. All the related matches will be displayed below it. Each song will be displayed with its Artist Name, Song Title, Duration and Status. Under status, select Download to begin the download process. Once the song is downloaded, select Play to play the song. music2pc does not have its own music player and the Play button will open the song in the default Windows Media Player. You can specify the download folder at the bottom of the interface.

music2pc is similar in function to the previously reviewed Songr, but other than the Artist or Song title search, Songr lets you search for songs by entering lyrics as well. music2pc is available for download in both portable and installable versions. It has a memory foot print of 8 MB, and works on Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 2003 and 2008 Server.

Download music2pc

Clipboard Magic: Remove Duplicates & Paste Text Items In Series via Hotkey

Usman — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:45:10 +0000

Clipboard Managers certainly come handy in situations where one has to copy text from different sources and paste the copied text snippets into required applications. There are diverse range of clipboard archivers available out there, which let users perform clipboard-specific operations along with creating a stack of copied items, but If you’re planning to copy text or code structures from various sources and paste them in a series, Clipboard Magic is worth a try. It’s a lightweight, clipboard manager and archiving utility for Windows that lets you organize copied plain text items under a single window, allowing you to use them via a series of hotkey combinations.

It registers Shift+Ctrl + 0-9 to quickly paste items in a list to application of your choice, without going through the hassle of selecting an item and then pasting it. Since it also manages the clipboard content, it can automatically delete the old clipboard archives to let you use only the recently copied items. Moreover, you can suspend saving the clipboard text items with a click to keep only the important text snippets in the list.

Additionally, you can quickly clear the Windows clipboard, and save all the clippings to any local location for starting a new clipboard archiving session. Unlike other clipboard managers, it comes with a feature to remove all the duplicate entries in its clipboard list. This saves you the time it takes to manually filter out duplicate text snippets from the list. The application sits in system tray after being launched. To view all the saved clippings, just click its system tray icon. You can clear clipboard and suspend clip archiving from right-click menu.

As mentioned earlier, it allows pasting saved clipping in a series. The list is mapped with Shift+Ctrl+0-9 keys, enabling you to quickly paste the required saved clipping into the application. For instance, using Shift+Ctrl+4 hotkey combination, you can paste the 4th text item saved in the list. By default, it copies text from top to bottom, but you can reverse the order from Options. It’s worth noting that you can paste only up to 10 items from the lists, as it doesn’t map any additional keys for using more than 10 saved text items.

From the toolbar, you can manually add frequently used text snippet, so that it can be copied to multiple applications. The zoom-in option helps you expand the clip content in the list, while clicking Save will export the list in its proprietary format (CLP).

The application configuration console can be accessed from View –> Options. It lets you change the default hotkey combinations for restoring app window and series paste, enable/disable show status bar, toolbar, associate CLP files, show clip titles options. Apart from this, you can also configure clip saving options, which include auto save on exit, periodic auto save, change copying sequence (from bottom to top), assign custom number of rows and font, change default clip folder location, and hide/reveal toolbar buttons.

Clipboard Magic has proved to be an extremely useful application for users who want to paste clippings in a required sequence. However, it doesn’t show the copied content before pasting it, and users have to bring up the main interface to view the position of text items in a list. It would have been a lot better, if it had the ability to show the saved clippings from system tray, just like previously featured Clippy.

The application works on versions of Windows. Both 32-bit and 64-bit OS editions are supported.

Download Clipboard Magic

YTubePlayer: Simple & Useful Desktop Tool For Managing YouTube Videos

Fawad — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:08:07 +0000

I’m sure that everyone who uses the internet knows about, and has visited, YouTube a lot of times. Founded in 2005, it became a lot famous in quite a short amount of time, allowing billions of users to view, as well as share, videos with a global audience. Other than the widely used entertainment purposes, YouTube is also used for showcasing products, launching music videos and educating people. The application can only be accessed through a browser and does not have an official desktop application out yet. YTubePlayer is a third party application for YouTube that provides you with a desktop tool to easily access and manage YouTube. More on YTubePlayer after the break.

YTubePlayer lets you search and play videos directly from your desktop, listen to your favorite YouTube steams, directly play feeds, allows you to use your multimedia keyboard for changing videos just as you would with a normal music or video player, lets you create and manage multiple playlists, share playlists by sending them to other YTubePlayer users, etc.

When the application starts for the first time, it asks you to create an account with the service. Having an account helps you to create and manage playlists. Enter a Nickname and Password to complete the registration.

The interface of the application is really simple, with the playback, search and playlist controls on the top, Playlists and Feeds on the right, while the video plays between them.

The Search button at the top allows you to search videos for playing. You can also add videos to playlists directly from the search module without having to open them. Either click the video to play it, or select Add To Playlist button to add it to a user created playlist.

Playlists can also be shared with other users of YTubePlayer from the Share Playlist button at the top. To share one, select a playlist, enter the name and click Share. The playlists shared by other users appear in the YTube Inbox accessible from the top of the main interface.

The application supports both Window and Full screen mode for viewing videos. When in full screen mode, the video resolution can be changed from the top right corner.

YTubePlayer is a bit of a memory hog and consumes around 152 MB. It works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download YTubePlayer

Create Wallpapers By Trimming & Scaling Raw Images Using BackGrounder

Fawad — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:58:12 +0000

Sometimes, it so happens that we find a very good image on the internet, and we instantly want to set it as our desktop wallpaper. It can be anything from an image of our favorite car to a photo of our favorite celebrity. However, a common problem faced by many users is the height and width of the image being different than that of your computer screen. Sure, we can use the default Windows options for adjusting wallpapers, including Center, Tile, Stretch, Fill and Fit, but that only changes the size of the image without letting you decide which part of the picture to show in the center of the screen. BackGrounder is an application for Windows that allows you to easily scale and trim images, enabling you to create wallpapers from image. Other than creating wallpapers, you can also use it to scale images for webpages or trim them to a required size.

The application has some simple but very useful options to customize images. There are a total of five values that you are allowed to configure, namely X Size, Y Size, Scale, X Position and Y Position. BackGrounder allows you to load an image file using the Open option under the File menu, or by dragging and dropping it into the image area. To trim an image, enter the values for the X and Y size that are required in the finished image. You can edit the image either by entering the required values in the text boxes, or by dragging the selection box with the mouse to the set position of the area that needs to be selected. For changing the scale, either enter a selected value, or use your mouse scroll to increase or decrease the scale size. Note that, using the mouse scroll while holding down the shift key, makes the scale size increase or decrease faster. When all settings are done, select Save to replace the original image, or Save As to save the trimmed image in a new file.

BackGrounder has a memory foot print of 13 MB and works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, including 64-bit architecture.

Download BackGrounder

Get New Background On Each System Start With My Daily Space Wallpaper

Fawad — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:15:18 +0000

Desktop customization is rather important for one to work productively and efficiently. While working, a good wallpaper can have very pleasant and positive effect on you. Your desktop background adds color and expression to your workspace, and generally, your character and mood effect the choice of wallpaper for your desktop background. We have covered many desktop wallpaper managers, such as DisplayFusion, Mourao Wallpaper Changer and Kuvva, that let you manage and automatically change desktop background after a certain time. Most of these applications either let you choose wallpapers from a local directory or randomly download and apply new wallpaper on your desktop. However, if you are a fan of wallpapers based on the space theme, try My Daily Space Wallpaper.

The application automatically downloads a new wallpaper each day and applies it to your desktop. Along with downloading and applying new wallpapers, it also provides you with options to locally save the downloaded wallpapers, download only high resolution wallpapers (useful if you have a big monitor), auto start with Windows (to change the background every time Windows loads up) and internet proxy settings to use the application while on a proxy server.

The application runs quietly in the system tray. Right-clicking its icon lets you manually change the current desktop background without restarting the system.

Even though the application performs everything advertised by the developer, there are still a lot of things that can be improved in My Daily Space Wallpaper. First of all, the application is only focused on space wallpapers. An option to change the theme of wallpapers should prove to be quite useful. Other than that, there is no option to specify custom time duration or the resolution for changing and applying the new wallpaper. It works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download My Daily Space Wallpaper

How To Take Ownership And Grant Permissions To Access Files & Folders In Windows 8

Usman — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:54:54 +0000

Like its predecessors, Windows 8 imposes strict access permissions on system-wide locations, folders and files. These access permissions restrict unauthorized users (including clients on network, and standard and guest users on local PC), and external sources (malicious scripts, viruses, malwares etc), from accessing core system folders and files. You may know that, when a malicious script attacks a system, it attempts to gain admin or root access to the system to exploit security vulnerabilities. In contrast to previous Windows versions, Windows 8 comes with an enhanced, and robust Advanced Security Settings, making it difficult for a novice users to gain complete control over the system locations, folders and files.

The file permission is a pre-defined rule that is associated with numerous system objects/users, preventing unauthenticated objects from taking full control over the system files. These file access rules help Windows check if a user or system object can gain special file access and write permission of a file. Additionally, the file access rules are defined by Windows, and can only be changed by PC administrators. The process of taking ownership of system files and changing access permission of system files is quite complicated, as it requires inheriting user objects or replacing default owner (TrustedInstaller object) with a specific PC user. In this post, we bring you step-by-step instructions for gaining full control over Windows 8 system files.

The system-wide locations, including Windows and System32 folder, don’t allow administrators to modify the system dynamic link libraries, executables, and other files. However, you can change the permissions for system files by tweaking Advance Security Settings. For instance, you want to edit and rename Windows 8 Theme DLL file namely uxtheme.dll. The first step for modifying the file content is to gain full file access and write permissions from system user object (TrustedInstaller), which has complete control over all system data.

To begin, move to location where system file that you want to modify, is residing. You will notice that Windows 8 denies all type of write access to the system file, and shows File Access Denied dialog when you attempt to modify, delete and rename the file.

Before you begin, make sure that you have administrative privileges to change the file access permissions, as standard user account holders can’t change the ownership of system files. Just right-click the file whose access permissions are to be changed, and then, select Properties. Now, move to Security tab, and select Administrators (<your user account name>\Administrators) from Permissions box to view the current file access permissions.

By default, users from Administrators group can only read and execute the file, and they don’t have permission to modify and write to file. To gain full file write access, click Advanced, present underneath the permissions box.

This will open Advanced Security Settings dialog of file, showing all the permission entries, Owner’s name, etc., with an option to change the file access permissions of selected user. First, off, change the owner by clicking Change. It will open Select User or Group dialog for selecting the new owner of the file. Instead of entering the name of owner, you can use the Advanced option to select the user from list. For this, click Advanced button.

In Advanced mode, you can search all the available users by clicking Find Now. It shows users and system objects in the list at the bottom, letting you select user/group to give ownership of the file. If you for instance want to give full file write and access permission to user who belongs to Administrators group, select Administrators and hit OK. Similarly, you can add more users by adding Users group from the list.

Once Administrators group is added, click OK to close the Select User or Group window.

Upon click, it will change the ownership of the file. Now, you need to add a specific Auditing entry for Administrators group to modify the file permissions (read, execute, write, modify etc). Just head over to Auditing tab, and click Add.

It will open Select User or Group dialog, allowing you to add a user object for inserting it into auditing entries list. You can either manually enter the name of user (who belongs to Administrators group) or click Advanced to select the user from the list.

Once you add the Administrator to auditing entries, it opens a Auditing Entry dialog to let you specify the file permissions. You can click Show advanced permissions to view and enable all file-related access permissions including traverse folder/execute file, read attributes, read extended attributes, create files/write data, write attributes, delete, read permissions, change permissions, take ownership and more. In order to gain complete control over file, select Success from Type drop-down menu, and enable Full control and hit OK.

This will define the file permissions for selected user. Now, click Apply followed by OK to make changes to file access permissions.

Upon click, Windows Security dialog shows up, confirming the changes made to file security and permission settings. Click OK and then close both Advance Security Settings and file Properties dialog.

Now, all you need is to open the file Properties dialog, head over Security tab and hit Edit. You will notice that it now allows you to change the file access permissions for all users who belong to Administrators group. Select the user from the list, and under Allow field, check Full control checkbox to gain full file access permissions.

Now, click Apply, a dialog will pop-up confirming the action. Hit Yes to allow full file access control for selected file.

Once file permissions have been gained, you will be able to modify file content, rename it, delete and change file’s extension. However, changing default file security settings will leave system files vulnerable to external attacks. So, it’s advised to restore the original file access settings after making required changes.

We also tried using Rizone Take Ownership Extension (an application for Windows 7 that integrates with Windows right-click context menu to quickly take ownership of files and folders) on Windows 8 system files, but it failed to gain special permission for writing and modifying system files. If you have tried any alternative that has worked, let us know in the comments.

ooVoo: Cross Platform Application For Free Text, Voice And Video Chat

Fawad — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:35:31 +0000

ooVoo is a cross platform communication tool that can be used for voice calling, video calling and instant messaging on Windows PC, Mac, Android and iOS based systems. It allows you to connect with anyone at anytime using video calls, video messages, voice chat, phone calls, text etc. If you cant meet with someone in person, don’t worry, ooVoo lets you have video chat with multiple people at a time. Due to the application being cross platform, it doesn’t matter if you or your friends are using Windows, Mac, iPad, iPhone or any Android based tablet or phone. More on ooVoo after the break.

To complete the installation, you are required to register an account with ooVoo. Enter the required information, including ooVoo ID, Password, Name, Birthday, Gender, Email Address etc, and click I Accept – Create Account to finalize the registration.

As soon as the registration is complete, the ooVoo messenger automatically logs in. From the Add Friends button, add your friends who are already present on ooVoo, to start connection with them using instant messaging, voice chat and video calls, and select Invite Friends to invite new people to the service.

Right from the messenger, you can start instant messaging, audio call or video call with your contacts with just a click of a button. The video call feature allows you to do a conference video call with multiple users at a time.

During the video call, you can also share your desktop screen with the other person. Moving your cursor on the top of the video call video reveals options to share screen. A good feature of ooVoo screen sharing is that if you have multiple displays, it allows you to choose which desktop to share with the other party.

The Settings menu accessible under File has all the basic settings related to audio calls, video calls, notifications, privacy and general application behavior.

Being a regular and long time user of Skype, I found ooVoo to be similar to it in a lot of ways. First of all, it doesn’t offer anything more or less to its users than Skype. The menus and options constantly kept reminding me of Skype, and if it hadn’t been for the yellow and black theme of ooVoo instead of the light blue and white of Skype, I might have mistaken it for being another version of Skype. Other than that, the black color applied on the whole interface is really annoying, and an option to change it will be a relief to the eyes of people who want to change it.

It has both paid and free versions, where the free version is limited in terms of number of participants in video call conference. The complete comparison can be viewed on the product page. ooVoo is a cross platform application, and is available for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android based devices.

Download ooVoo

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

IMGDissolver: Cross-Platform Slideshow Creation Tool With Transitions & Filters

Fawad — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:54:26 +0000

To avoid the complexity of hard to understand applications, most of the people avoid creating professional slideshows by themselves, and mostly hire others to do the job for them. However, contrary to the common belief that professional looking slideshows cannot be created easily, there are a ton of free and easy to use applications that allow you to make slideshows in just a few steps. Previously, we have covered some very useful tools for creating slideshows, such as PhotoStage for creating professional slideshows with any media file and the default Windows application called Windows DVD Maker available in Windows Vista and Windows 7. All these applications are limited to Windows, but if you want a cross platform application for creating slideshows, try IMGDissolver. It is an easy to use open source application for Windows and Linux operating systems that can be used for creating slideshows, DIVX and DVD of your photos and videos.

The application allows you to create slideshows of images and videos using several transition effects, applying filters and specifying transition settings. It also lets you apply audio tracks as background music for your slideshows.

The interface has Main, Summary, Music, Settings, Audio Tools and Video Tools tabs available at the top. By default, Main tab is selected, allowing you to add images, preview them and modify each image separately. You can also change the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Gamma etc, and apply different effects, such as Emboss, Sepia, Blur, Rectangles, Rotation etc.

The Summary tab lets you add new images to the list, move them up & down, and apply individual effects to each image.

The Settings tab lets you change the Transition style from Pixel, Blinds, Simple Door, Scroll, Dissolve, Mosaic etc., increase and decrease the transition and image duration, apply a filter and choose a background color.

The Audio Tools tab lest you select an audio track to be played in the background of the slideshow, while the Video Tools tab allows you to input a video file, cut a selected portion from it, convert it or just extract its audio stream.

IMGDIssolver allows you to save it in slideshow, DIVX and DVD formats.

The list of features according to the developer are as follows:

Easy slideshow creation, with background music
Export slideshow into DIVX or DVD
Support for captions (top, center, bottom), with many fonts available
Support for many video formats
Multilanguage (English, Spanish, Italian, Greek)
Capability of concatenate mp3 files, merge mp3 files, record voice into an mp3 file
Video tools: capability of grabbing one image from a video, convert a video into an other format, cut a video
Effects like gray-scale and sepia
Many transition effects available

IMGDissolver is a cross platform application and works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Linux operating systems.

Download IMGDissolver

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