Bloodshed Software - AVI Creator

AVI Creator will create AVI files instantly: just select the pictures and that's all

AVI Creator will create AVI files instantly: just select the pictures and that's all.

Here are some key features of "AVI Creator":

To add pictures to the AVI, click on File, then on Add pictures to project. Select the Bitmap or Icons files to add and click on Open.
To delete pictures, click on them in the file list and click the Delete button.
You can modify the scale/rate of your AVI file by typing in a value in the edit fields.
To create an AVI, click on AVI menu then on Create AVI. Select a name and a path for it and click on Save. You can now test it by clicking on Test AVI.

Bloodshed Software - AVI Creator

DVDShrink: solution for shrinking original DVDs onto recordable media

DVDShrink is a software solution for shrinking original DVDs onto recordable media.

DVDShrink is software to backup DVD discs. You can use this software in conjunction with DVD burning software of your choice, to make a backup copy of any DVD video disc.

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

Why do I need DVDShrink?

Most DVDs are designed to prevent you from making copies.

The first preventative measure is encryption. Commercial DVD titles are often encrypted, which prevents you from either copying them to your hard drive, or if you manage to do so, being able to play the resulting files. DVDShrink overcomes this problem with built-in decryption algorithms.

The next problem is not so easy. Most DVD video titles are simply too large to fit, without modification, onto a single recordable DVD-R disk. DVDShrink overcomes this problem by compressing or "shrinking" the data from your original DVD.

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

Download DVDShrink here.

WinPatrol

As a MULTI PURPOSE SUPPORT UTILITY WinPatrol replaces multiple system utilities with its enhanced functionality. WinPatrol PLUS provides easy to understand descriptions of over 18,000 programs.

As a robust SECURITY MONITOR, WinPatrol will alert you to hijackings, malware attacks and critical changes made to your computer without your permission. WinPatrol PLUS includes our unique, patent pending R.I.D. technology.

WinPatrol uses a heuristic behavioral approach to detecting attacks and violations of your computing environment. Traditional security programs scan your hard drive searching for previously identified threats. WinPatrol takes snapshot of your critical system resources and alerts you to any changes that may occur without your knowledge. You'll be removing dangerous new programs while others prepare to update their definition/signature data files.

WinPatrol is a must-have tool:
It helps keep your system tray free of clutter and warns you when a program insists on loading at system boot-up. The latest version -- WinPatrol 2007 -- has Delayed Start, a smart feature that lets you delay launch of nonessential programs for up to an hour after the system boots, so Windows loads faster. That's ideal timing for applications such as backup programs.

Also new is a right-click function that opens the startup program's folder in Windows Explorer. WinPatrol Plus costs $30, but there's a free version as well. Compare the two versions.

Trillian

Trillian is a fully featured, stand-alone, skinnable chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC. It provides capabilities not possible with original network clients, while supporting standard features such as audio chat, file transfers, group chats, chat rooms, buddy icons, multiple simultaneous connections to the same network, server-side contact importing, typing notification, direct connection (AIM), proxy support, encrypted messaging (AIM/ICQ), SMS support, and privacy settings.

Trillian provides unique functionality such as contact message history, a powerful skinning language, tabbed messaging, global status changes (set all networks away at once), Instant Lookup (automatic Wikipedia integration), contact alerts, an advanced automation system to trigger events based on anything happening in the client, docking, hundreds of emoticons, emotisounds, shell extensions for file transfers, and systray notifications.

Use Trillian Wherever You Go

Install Trillian on your zip Disk, CD, Diskonkey, or any other type of portable media. Take Trillian, your preferences, and your contact list with you wherever you go. Use a fully functional Trillian anywhere, on any computer with an internet connection instead of online clients with limited functionality such as AIM Express and ICQ Lite.

Free download manager: FDM, my favourite download manager

Free Download Manager is a powerful, easy-to-use and absolutely free download accelerator and manager. Moreover, FDM is 100% safe, open-source software distributed under GPL license. I have used it as my primary download accelerator and manager for years now.

GNU General Public License

Free Download Manager is now open source software released under GNU GPL.

Increase your download speed and resume broken downloads

FDM accelerates downloads by splitting files into sections and then downloading them simultaneously. As a result download speed increases up to 600%, or even more! FDM can also resume broken downloads so you needn`t start downloading from the beginning after casual interruption.

Flash video download

Download video from video sites, such as Youtube, Google Video, etc. The video can then be saved in native .flv format or converted to one of more popular video formats.

Enjoy easy file sharing

A built-in Upload Manager lets you upload your files easily to share them with other people. Upload manager can be easily integrated with your system (Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express).

Enjoy safer and more rewarding downloading

You can read what other community members say about the file you are going to download, and also leave your own opinion about the file you downloaded. In this way FDM users are always warned against useless or malicious files.

Portable mode
If you want to use Free Download Manager on different computers, you can easily create its portable version and avoid the need to install and configure the program on each computer.

In addition, Free Download Manager allows you to: adjust traffic usage; to organize and schedule downloads; download video from video sites; download whole web sites with HTML Spider; operate the program remotely, via the internet, and more!

ClamWin Free Antivirus

ClamWin is a Free Antivirus program for Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003 and Vista.

ClamWin Free Antivirus comes with an easy installer and open source code. You may download and use it absolutely free of charge. It features:

High detection rates for viruses and spyware;
Scanning Scheduler;
Automatic downloads of regularly updated Virus Database.
Standalone virus scanner and right-click menu integration to Microsoft Windows Explorer;
Addin to Microsoft Outlook to remove virus-infected attachments automatically.

The latest version of Clamwin Free Antivirus is 0.93

ClamWin Free Antivirus is based on ClamAV engine and uses GNU General Public License by the Free Software Foundation, and is free (as in freedom) software. To find out more about GNU GPL, please visit the following link: Philosophy of the GNU Project - Free Software Foundation.

ClamWin Free Antivirus uses ClamAV Scanning Engine.

Please note that ClamWin Free Antivirus does not include an on-access real-time scanner. You need to manually scan a file in order to detect a virus or spyware.

FreeCommander

FreeCommander is an easy-to-use alternative to the standard windows file manager. The program helps you with daily work in Windows. Here you can find all the necessary functions to manage your data stock. You can take FreeCommander anywhere - just copy the installation directory on a CD, USB-Stick or even a floppy disk - and you can even work with this program on a foreign computer.

Main features in FreeCommander:

Dual-panel technology - horizontal and vertical
Tabbed interface
Optional tree view for each panel
Built in file viewer to view files in hex, binary, text or image format
File viewer inside archives too
Built in archive handling: ZIP (read, write), CAB (read, write), RAR (read)
Nested archive handling
Easy access to system folders, control panel, desktop and start menu
Copy, move, delete, rename files and folders
Wipe files
Create and verify MD5 checksums
File splitting
File properties and context menu
Calculation of folder size
Folder comparison / synchronization
Modification of file date and attributes
Folder / program favorites
File searching (inside archive too)
File filters for display
User defined columns for detailed view
DOS command line
Multiple language support

Terragen

Terragen is a scenery generator, created with the goal of generating photorealistic landscape images and animations. It is available for Windows and the Mac OS. At this stage in its development, Terragen is free for personal, noncommercial use.

Although Terragen is a continually evolving work-in-progress, it is already capable of near-photorealistic results for professional landscape visualisation, special effects, art and recreation. Terragen has been used in a variety of commercial applications including film, television and music videos, games and multimedia, books, magazines and print advertisements.

Despite the fact that Terragen can be used for professional landscape visualisation projects, it is accessible and easy to get started with. You could be rendering your first landscape image in as little as 15 minutes after installation.

You can view a gallery of images created by Terragen users here.

Terragen has a native user interface, using facilities provided by the operating system of the respective platform, as opposed to the custom user interfaces used by many similar applications. This means Terragen can follow the usage conventions of each platform as closely as possible, which ensures that it looks and feels just like the other applications you use and means there is no learning curve with respect to the basic operation of Terragen. Here are some screenshots of Terragen on different platforms.

Download Terragen here.

QuickTime Alternative

Plays QuickTime (.mov .qt) files without having to install QuickTime player

QuickTime Alternative will allow you to play QuickTime (.mov .qt) files. This way there is no need to install the offical QuickTime Player.

QuickTime Alternative also supports QuickTime content that is embedded in webpages. The QuickTime plugins include iPIX and QuickTimeVR. QuickTime Alternative is a software with codecs, filters and plugins that play QuickTime files.

The QuickTime Browser plugin supports Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla and Netscape.

It is highly recommended to uninstall all existing QuickTime related software, like QuickTime Player, before installing. This way your system stays clean and potential problems will be avoided.

Here are some key features of "QuickTime Alternative":

· Media Player Classic
· QuickTime Codecs
· QuickTime DirectShow filter
· QuickTime plugin for Internet Explorer
· QuickTime plugin for Opera/Mozilla/Netscape
· QuickTime Control Panel
· Extra plugins for QuickTime

Free PDF to Word Converter

There are many, many tools to convert Microsoft Word files into PDF documents, including those built into the latest office suites, but what about the other way around?

Free PDF to Word Doc Converter is a small program that solves a big headache for some office and document workers. Load up a PDF, choose how you want to export the file—including images, shapes, and text layout functions—and hit the convert button. Seems to work bloody well!

Free PDF to Word Converter

iContact Brings Your Google Contacts to Your Desktop

iContact downloads your Gmail address book to your desktop for quick access to all your contacts' information. Searching contacts in iContact is very fast, but the main benefit of the application is its built-in support for other tools.

For example, you can make a phone call with Skype or map a contact's address with Google Maps with just a couple of clicks in iContact.

Firefox 3 for Windows update

I am now using Firefox 3 on my Windows PC (have had it on Ubuntu for ages now it seems). It uses less memory and loads faster. Some add-ons were not compatible but most were.

I had a small problem, the Skype Extensions for Firefox (not the main Skype program) caused Google Maps NOT to load. Someone else at Google groups had the same problem. One can start Firefox in SAFE mode from the Start menu and this will allow it load without any addons. I did this and saw Google Maps works fine with Firefox, so the culprit had to be an Add on. By disabling them one by one until Google maps worked I was able to single out Skype extesnion. Why is caused this problem I don't know. Probably something to do with latching on to certain ports that the other program needed.

Better security, better backup of user setting and data. Better bookmarks overall and search bar is vastly improved.

Some PDF to Word Converter

Some PDF to Word Converter takes your PDFs and—as the name implies—converts them to Microsoft Word documents.

It's always been a cinch to print Word documents as PDFs, but going the other way around is generally more difficult. Many online tools can handle PDF-to-DOC conversions, but most of us don't want to upload our sensitive docs to the web for third-party conversion, so desktop tools are preferable.

Some PDF to Word Converter

UltimateDefrag Moves Apps and Files for Quicker Access

Put your high-priority programs and files in the most easily-accessed parts of your hard drive with UltimateDefrag, a free Windows utility.

The program does all the normal data-ordering of a standard defragmenting app (and probably runs at roughly the same speeds), but lets you choose which data to place on the outer, or faster, portions of your disk. You can also ask UltimateDefrag to analyze your drive and see which files have been most recently accessed, which works best for drives or partitions set aside for data, or automatically try to improve ease of access.

UltimateDefrag can also run as your default defrag tool, and run only when a screensaver is active.

UltimateDefrag Freeware Edition

FreeCalc Adds History Ribbon, Other Power Tools to Windows Calculator

Moffsoft FreeCalc looks just like your built-in Calculator tool, but feels like it's been listening to your complaints and requests for that app since your first days at the keyboard. FreeCalc sports an optional accountant-like history ribbon to see your recent number work, and displays the number currently in your clipboard memory in its status bar to help avoid mix-ups.

It can run from your system tray, adds a few useful keys (like M-), and can be resized and color-themed, making it a worthy addition to the list of power replacements for Windows utilities.

Get FreeCalc version from the download page, unless you REALY want the for-pay Moffsoft Calculator 2.

Moffsoft FreeCalc

Photoscape Fixes and Enhances Your Pictures

Image editor Photoscape offers a large array of features packaged with a simple and intuitive user interface. View and organize your photos in Photoscape, correct red eye and white balance, crop, add text and frames, and more all from the basic editor. Photoscape also has a batch editor for quickly processing large volumes of pictures, a file renamer, RAW to JPEG processor, screen capture tool, image splitter for printing pictures across multiple sheets, and the ability to create animated GIFs.

There's an abundance of freeware options for all of the above tasks, but Photoscape combines dozens of photo editing jobs into a single and easy to navigate workspace.

Photoscape

Featured Windows Download: Photoscape Fixes and Enhances Your Pictures

Copy Handler Speeds Up File Copying

Free, open-source application Copy Handler speeds up Windows file transfers up to seven times in addition to providing advanced features for copying and moving files, like pausing, resuming, and restarting transfers.

Similar to previously mentioned TeraCopy, Copy Handler is a perfect tool for improving the default copy-and-move operations that your computer performs daily, especially if you're frequently moving large files. With optional integration directly with your normal copy-and-paste shortcuts and right-click menu, the app can even auto-resume transfers on error or on system restarts.

Apart from all of that, Copy Handler is also wildly customizable and provides several different views depending on how much power you need for any given copy.

Copy Handler is free, Windows only.

Copy Handler

Flock 1.2 Bakes Social Networking into Everyday Browsing

All platforms: Based on the open source Firefox code base, social web browser Flock adds heavy integration with popular social media web sites to your regular web surfing. We haven't mentioned Flock in ages, but the recent 1.2 release is worth another look. Much like Digsby bakes social networking into your instant messenger, Flock offers easy access to your favorite social services built into the browser. Let's take a closer look at what you get with Flock.

Setting up shop with Flock is straightforward: after the initial installation process it asks for the basics, like whether or not you'd like to set Flock as your default browser, and which bookmarks you'd like to import. From there, as you use the browser it continues configure itself to enhance your experience. Every time you log into a supported web service it offers to activate the support for it in Flock.

flock%20sidebar.jpg Wondering if Flock supports a social networking service you can't live without? Digg, Pownce, Twitter, Gmail, AOL Mail, Yahoo Mail, Picasa, Photobucket, Piczo, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, Wordpress, Live Journal, Blogsome, Typepad, Xanga, Del.icio.us, and Magnolia are all on Flock's supported servicer roster. Move quickly between your accounts using the accounts and services sidebar.

Found a link that you want to email to a friend or submit to Digg? Address bar buttons allow for one click access to both your email account and Digg.

If a site you're visiting has an RSS feed available, the RSS icon in the address bar will glow orange to show you the feed is available. Hit the button for one-click subscription to either the in-browser feedreader or an external newsreader like Google Reader or Feed Demon.

If the prospect of switching from Firefox to Flock has you worried about leaving behind your most-loved extensions behind, fear not. According to the Flock web site, most Firefox extensions will work just fine, and they even offer a variety of verified Flock-compatible add-ons on their site. During my testing, five popular extensions we've covered here at Lifehacker—Adblock Plus, DownThemAll!, Foxmarks, Greasemonkey, and PicLens—all installed directly from Mozilla Add-ons and ran in Flock flawlessly.

Users and casual browsers of media sites like Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube, etc. can benefit from Flock's media bar feature. The media bar lets users quickly search, share, and upload media to popular sites.

blog%20editor.jpg
Flock also comes with built-in blog editor. The editor currently works with Blogger, Blogsome, Wordpress, LiveJournal, Typepad, and Xanga and features a WSIWYG style interface with a handy drag and drop feature for inserting media. For bloggers that host their own blogs there is a wizard for setting up a self-hosted blog (which then gets integrated along with all the other supported sites into the Flock browsing flow.)

Built on the solid framework of Firefox, Flock offers quite a spread of goodies for hyper-connected users who spend time collaborating, sharing, submitting, and browsing social media sites. But does Flock have what it takes to lure you away from your primary browser to give it a whirl? Let's hear about your experiences with Flock in the comments.

Picasa2Flickr Uploads Picasa Photos Directly to Flickr

The free Picasa2Flickr plug-in uploads photos from image-editing application Picasa to photo-sharing web application Flickr at the press of a button.

This new and improved version actually just sends your selected photos straight to Flickr Uploadr 3.0, Flickr's default tool for uploading photos.

There were always good workarounds for perfecting your Picasa to Flickr workflow, but it doesn't get much better than Picasa2Flickr.

Featured Windows Download: Picasa2Flickr Uploads Picasa Photos Directly to Flickr

Zindus Syncs Thunderbird with Google Contacts

All platforms running Thunderbird: Thunderbird extension Zindus syncs your Google contacts with Thunderbird's address book. Just install the extension, give it your Gmail username and password (it supports both @gmail and Google Apps domains), and hit the Sync Now button to synchronize names, email addresses, phone numbers, IM handles, and more. Zindus does its best to handle any conflicts and walk you through resolutions, but you can also sync the contacts to a separate list if you just want to give it a try. The free, cross-platform Zindus is a fantastic solution for Thunderbird users jealous of Address Book's recent Google Contact Sync update.

Featured Thunderbird Extension: Zindus Syncs Thunderbird with Google Contacts

Copy your files faster with TeraCopy

TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user a lot of features:

Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.
Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click.
Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.
Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.
Full Unicode support.

Download TeraCopy – Free for Home Users

Copy your files faster with TeraCopy

Firefox's market share climbs toward world domination

Posted by Matt Asay

Firefox is set to top 20 percent global market share in July, continuing its steady trend toward world domination through, er, open-source liberation.

Unlike Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which relied on all sorts of tricks and tying to achieve its dominant status, Firefox's gains seem to be coming for two reasons:

It works better (Better security, better performance, better functionality).
It's much more customizable.

As ReadWriteWeb points out, the game is increasingly Firefox's to lose. Internet Explorer used to command 96 percent of the market. Now it's struggling to hold onto 80 percent, with Firefox chipping away, 1 percent at a time.

Better software doesn't always win. In today's market, in fact, the superior marketing budget generally wins.

But not in the IE versus Firefox war, for some reason. Firefox continues to gain market share. Perhaps this time "better" really will translate into market share.

Firefox's market share climbs toward world domination | The Open Road - The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay - CNET News.com

10 Free Web-based Alternatives to Photoshop

I’m fed up with Photoshop and its one billion rarely-used features.

How about a simple photo-editor that’s quick, easy, and doesn’t cost a thousand dollars.

Fortunately, there’re tons of web-based photos editors popping up. Most are utter crap, but some are promising.

Check out these free web-based Photoshop alternatives:

10 Free Web-based Alternatives to Photoshop

AceBackup Offers Local, Remote, and Secure File Backup

A very robust backup utility, AceBackup offers a host of features missing in most freeware backup apps, like file versioning, secure FTP, file-specific encryption, Windows shell integration, and backup compression.

To set up a secure backup job in AceBackup, create a new project, select the files, choose the level of security, tell AceBackup where to put the files—local hard disk, network disk, CD/DVD, remote FTP, etc.—and how often, and bam!

You get automated, secure, local and remote backup nirvana that rivals my other favorite, Syncback SE.

Ace Backup is a free download.

Ace Backup

EphPod - iPod for Windows (and Linux) :: HOME

EphPod

EphPod is a full-featured, easy-to-use Windows application that connects with Apple's iPod. With a FireWire card and EphPod on a PC, it takes under 30 minutes to transfer 1,000 songs to an iPod. In addition, EphPod supports standard WinAmp (.M3U) playlists, includes powerful playlist creation features, and will synchronize an entire music collection with one click.

It imports Microsoft Outlook contacts, in addition to allowing users to create and edit their own contacts. EphPod can also download the latest news, weather, e-books, and movie listings to an iPod.

latest news: First order of business -- I was able to spare a little development time to whip up a sleep timer for iTunes, Abbie's Sleep Timer for iTunes.

I've also spent some time with EphPod, but the latest updates of the iPod firmware with podcasts and videos are causing much consternation. This, combined with exams coming up in January, are big stumbling blocks. I've given others the EphPod source code, but no one appears to have done anything significant with it.

I need an iPod video to make those features work, so I'm going to dedicate the beer fund to an iPod video, and when I have enough there, hopefully I can release at least some program that will help people get stuff off their iPods.

EphPod - iPod for Windows (and Linux)

Alienware : The Best Custom Built Gaming PC for the Ultimate PC Gamer!

Offered with all new Alienware systems or for download free of charge, AlienGUIse™ Theme Manager dramatically transforms the appearance of your Microsoft® Windows® operating system into a truly unique display, and features exclusive Alienware-centered skins like AlienMorph™ and ALXMorph™. These sleek and stylish Alienware skins vividly alter the appearance of desktop features such as your icons, wallpaper, and Windows Media Player.

Animation shown is a simulation.
Actual skin animations will appear in real-time.

Icons
Over 75 bold and exciting Alienware custom icons create an unforgettable visual atmosphere for your desktop. From the Internet to the Recycling Bin, your Alienware icons will set a new standard for style.

Wallpaper
Catch a glimpse of the future with a custom Alienware wallpaper that sets a thrilling backdrop for your Windows experience. This extraordinary look will easily distinguish your system from the sea of regular desktop backgrounds.

Media Player
Enter an exhilarating new world of media players with the Alienware media player skin, which delivers dual-gyroscopic animations and custom time digits. Featuring an animation sequence that contains more than 135 frames, your Alienware media player skin provides the perfect visual complement to your audio experience.

Alienware : The Best Custom Built Gaming PC for the Ultimate PC Gamer!

Quickly Remove Items from Windows XP Startup

Okay so this technically isn't a Windows Alternative program, but it IS a clear and easy way to speed up your old Windows XP!

Dump half of those Startup items that you don't need. Start with a cleaner and fresher PC every time you restart!

Also these guys at The How-To Geek have plenty more tips and hints like this!

Stuart
===========================================================

Do you sigh when it comes to starting up your computer because it takes what seems an eternity to boot up? Here is a quick tip which should make your computer start up faster by removing startup items quickly.

Click on Start >> Run and in the run line type in "msconfig" hit enter or click on OK.

Next click on the Start Up tab. By default all items are usually checked, but you can remove any items that you don't feel need to be running when you start your computer.

After you have made your selection, click Apply, OK and Restart. You should now notice a remarkable improvement in your start up time.

Mysticgeek is the resident IT expert at How-To Geek and a huge rock music fan. When he's not writing about Microsoft Office, he's probably writing at his personal blog. This article was written on 06/30/07 and tagged with: Windows

Quickly Remove Items from Windows XP Startup :: the How-To Geek

GIMP: the Photoshop alternative

GIMP is an extremely versatile graphics manipulation package. If you use Adobe Photoshop at work, and would like the same capability at home, this is the answer without shelling out hundreds of dollars.

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.

Features and Capabilities

This is only a very quickly thrown together list of GIMP features. You can also have a look at the illustrated features overview.

Painting
- Full suite of painting tools including Brush, Pencil, Airbrush, Clone, etc.
- Sub-pixel sampling for all paint tools for high quality anti-aliasing
- Extremely powerful gradient editor and blend tool
- Supports custom brushes and patterns
System
- Tile based memory management so image size is limited only by available disk space
- Virtually unlimited number of images open at one time
Advanced Manipulation
- Full alpha channel support
- Layers and channels
- Multiple Undo/Redo (limited only by diskspace)
- Editable text layers
- Transformation tools including rotate, scale, shear and flip
- Selection tools including rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, free, fuzzy
- Foreground extraction tool
- Advanced path tool doing bezier and polygonal selections.
- Transformable paths, transformable selections.
- Quickmask to paint a selection.
Extensible
- A Procedural Database for calling internal GIMP functions from external programs as in Script-fu
- Advanced scripting capabilities (Scheme, Python, Perl)
- Plug-ins which allow for the easy addition of new file formats and new effect filters
- Over 100 plug-ins already available
Animation
- Load and save animations in a convenient frame-as-layer format
- MNG support
- Frame Navigator (in GAP, the GIMP Animation Package)
- Onion Skin (in GAP, the GIMP Animation Package)
- Bluebox (in GAP, the GIMP Animation Package)
File Handling
- File formats supported include bmp, gif, jpeg, mng, pcx, pdf, png, ps, psd, svg, tiff, tga, xpm, and many others
- Load, display, convert, save to many file formats
- SVG path import/export
Much, much more!

Wizmo is One Program that Runs Many Windows Tweaks

Wizmo is a free tweak and hack utility for Windows systems. It is a tiny but powerful little stand-alone application that lets you create shortcuts for all kinds of things you might want to do in Windows.

If you're looking for a way to quickly turn off a laptop monitor to save power, for instance, create a shortcut to Wizmo and add the -monoff option for instant screen darkening. You can restart your wireless reception, blank out your background image, pop out a CD, and do much more—just run the program by itself to get a list of command switches. If you've already got a lot of little apps that accomplish these tasks, you might think about consolidating for easier reformats and portability.

The PC Decrapifier

The PC Decrapifier

The PC Decrapifier is a program designed to remove or uninstall a specific list unwanted software in an unattended fashion. It can be used to clean off most of the annoying software that is typically shipped with newer PCs

SyncBack SE

Syncback is not a typical file backup. Never the less it can be used for that too. Syncback offers an array of synchronization options not found in typical file backup program. It does an excellent job keeping the data on two different systems synchronized.

The typical application for it may be to keep the data on your laptop and your desktop the same. Another use would be to backup up your local data to the server. There are many uses for this excellent sync program. SyncBack SE is very well done.

We use SyncBack SE to synchronize data across networks and to FTP servers. Every time I use it I find more great features. I recommend it to any admin or advanced user but not to a novice or even average user.

Geek to Live: Eight killer Thunderbird extensions

Eight killer Thunderbird extensions by Gina Trapani

File messages in a flash, customize keyboard shortcuts, weed out duplicate messages automatically, supercharge the search field and more with these 8 must-have enhancements for Thunderbird.

1. Nostalgy
Quick folder navigation and message movement

Keyboard-lovers will appreciate the ability to Copy or Save a message or simply switch (Go) to any Thunderbird email folder quickly using the C, S and G keys and Nostalgy auto-complete. Type the name of your folder and a list of matching suggestions appears, or do it CLI-style and use the Tab key to cycle through folder name suggestions. You can also set Nostalgy rules for what messages should go into what folders, so when your Chase bank online statement comes in you can shuttle it into your Finances folder in one keystroke. Similar to previously-posted QuickFile, Nostalgy has one killer leg up: the ability to undo your last move.

2. QuickMove
Assign keyboard shortcuts to move messages to assigned folders

For those of us with only a few folders, TB Quick Move assigns keyboard shortcuts to the "Move this message to this folder" action. This one is a must-have for those of you working the Trusted Trio with Thunderbird.

Read full article here:
Eight killer Thunderbird extensions by Gina Trapani

Thunderbird as a replacement for Outlook Express

Like its sibling Firefox, the beauty of the open source Thunderbird email client is its extensibility. Sure we love our web-based email like Gmail, but Thunderbird 2 is the ultimate open source desktop email application. Its pluggable interface lets developers freely build extensions to make it ever more useful. And ever more useful do a few key extensions make it.

File messages in a flash, customize keyboard shortcuts, weed out duplicate messages automatically, supercharge the search field and more with these 8 must-have enhancements for Thunderbird 2 .

Keep Your Vital Information Organized
Thunderbird 2 features many new enhancements to help you better manage your unruly Inbox, and stay informed. Thunderbird 2 scales to the most sophisticated organizational needs while making it easy to find what you need.

Secure and Protect Your Mail
Mozilla has bolstered Thunderbird’s acclaimed security and privacy measures to ensure that your communications and identity remain safe. It’s like having your own security guard online.

Get Your Mail, Your Way
Thunderbird allows you to customize your email to suit your specific needs whether it’s how you search and find messages or listening to music right out of your inbox.

Build in your tasks and schedule with Lightning
Lightning brings the Sunbird calendar to the popular email client, Mozilla Thunderbird. Since it's an extension, Lightning is tightly integrated with Thunderbird, allowing it to easily perform email-related calendaring tasks.

Mozilla’s Thunderbird 2 email application is more powerful than ever. It’s now even easier to organize, secure and customize your mail.

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

Photo Toolkit

Photo Toolkit is a powerful and easy-to-use program to edit your digital images.

With only a few clicks, you can automatically remove red eye and correct colors of multiple photos (batch mode), retouch portraits, whiten teeth, add lighting effects, straighten and resize photos and more - and directly from the standard Windows picture viewer. Correct your shots while viewing them.

Photo Toolkit includes several unique tools to improve your photos. Red Eye Remover is the fully automatic solution for red eye correction. You do not need to draw accurately over the red zone or use a brush to correct your photos. In most cases Photo Toolkit detects all instances of red eye on your photos and corrects them instantly. The program allows even a novice photographer to improve portrait photos in just a minute by performing simple and fast skin correction. Several brush tools, each addressing a specific skin defect, approximate neighboring areas to overlap the defect, making the skin look natural and smooth.

To make a perfect portrait even better, you can whiten teeth. The unique tool enables you to make teeth whiter without precise brush stokes. Just touch the area with a brush - and get the Hollywood smile. With the color correction function you can improve contrast, saturation and gamma with only one click. You can choose one of nine images resulted from the automatic correction or perform manual editing. Photo Toolkit also offers a set of options for advanced color correction. The Straighten plug-in offers the easiest way to straighten tilted photos simply by drawing a line that you want to be horizontal or vertical.

With Photo Toolkit, you can also resize photos increasing or decreasing resolution for printing or sharing via web or email, crop and fine-tune the image, add artistic and lighting effects and more. The program also contains a plugin for creating thumbnails of your photos for web galleries.

Photo Toolkit

How to fully de-gunk a PC of Crapware | TalkBack on ZDNet

These are tools I carry on a USB stick for computers with problems, they can be used to remove junk or settings left by crapware. They are all freeware.

RegScrubXP
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Reviews/r882.html
or
Windows Registry Repair
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Free_Window_Registry_Repair_d5461.html

Registry Defrag/Compact
http://www.registry-clean.net/free-registry-defrag.htm

TCP Optimizer
http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php

Hijackthis
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/HijackThis-Download-5034.html

Startup Control Panel
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

StartupRun
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/strun.html

TuneXP
http://tweakhound.com/reviews/tunexp/index.htm

BootVis
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/BootVis.shtml

I know some of these go beyond crapware but if you use all of them and each one adds a few percent improvement in speed when you're done your machine may be noticeably faster

How to fully de-gunk a PC of Crapware