Free software every day

[gonwk]

Hi dr_ml,

I wouldn't lose sleep over it ... since it had way Mixed Reviews ... leaning toward not so Hot!

G!

[src2206]

I just came across this software, I suggest that fellow members to try it (if not being used already that is), chances that you shall never uninstall it again:

http://www.launchy.net/#introduction

[MilesAhead]

good old Burrrn

I just found a portable version of Burrrn for download.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE-SOFTWARE/CD-DVD-Tools/Windows-Portable-Applications-Portable-Burrrn.shtml

I just burned an audio CD on Vista64 and I'm playing it now. Nice little app that has support for .flac .ape and several other formats.

[dr_ml422]

Great app. and great find Miles. a .exe of anything is always welcomed, and Burrrn is a very good burning utility.

[MilesAhead]

Here's another app I used a long time ago when the free version had more functions. GoldWave Editor Pro.

I don't get into a lot of audio work so I can't really evaluate how good it is compared to other audio tools. I do know it has a nice batch mode. Say if you have a bunch of .avi that are finicky with TMPGEnc because of the audio(reason I used it most) you can open the batch window and drag & drop a bunch of .avi and output a .wav file with the same base name as each file.

I know it can do some other stuff like put in fades, mess with volume levels, etc..

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/gold-wave-editor-pro/

[MilesAhead]

network clipboard freeibe

http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=16758.25

Someone put me onto this Network Clipboard freebie. It's just good for your private Lan where you can share a folder. You do Alt-Control-C to copy and Alt-Control-V to paste across the network.

On Vista 64 it didn't give me any sound. If you look at the bottom of the link above you'll see I posted an AutoHotKey script so you can have sound on Vista64. You just need to put whatever wav files you want for the sounds in the same folder as the ahk script, and name them copy.wav and paste.wav. (Of course you need AutoHotKey to run the script. You can also download a compiler from the AutoHotKey site that works a lot like Freeze does for python.)

If you're running all 32 bit then the program should provide the sounds. My script is only if you get no sound out of Network Clipboard.

It does images as well as text, so that's why I figured it was worth the effort. The hotkeys are 3 key combos so it's tough to tell if you got them all down without some kind of cue. I wish the hotkeys were adjustable but it's a free program that works. Any other ones I've seen that do graphics across a network connection are shareware.

Edit: I posted the script in compiled form along with wav files and a Readme showing usage:

http://www.favessoft.com/ChimeCopy.zip

[MilesAhead]

Paragon Drive Copy 9.0 SE on Giveaway

Paragon Drive Copy 9.0 SE is on Giveaway today

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

I've never used it so please don't ask me if it's any good or what it works with. Check out the write-up on the Paragon site for details. I scoffed it on the off chance I may buy a new HD soon. (All I can tell you is I did the install and activation process on W7 7077 32 bit and it tells me it activated.)

[MilesAhead]

For simple ISO mounting, MagicDisc

I've just been using it for a couple of days but it seems to work fine in Vista64. I only need simple ISO mounthing so it's good enough for me(at least so far so good.)

[MilesAhead]

Personal Video Database 09.9.10 stable

Personal Video Database 09.9.10 stable has been released:

http://www.videodb.info/forum_en/

My main gripe is it still doesn't have the grid on the side panel for those of us who would like the number to be right justified.. but that's a minor quibble. If the movie info is in IMDB then most things are a matter of typing in the title and hitting Go. It fills in all the movie info. It also has a button to get poster art from online. I didn't want to waste the disk space of storing posters, but while I was trying to figure out how to shut that feature off, I got a few of 'em and got hooked.

Pretty nice program esp. for free software. Also has a forum. If you ask a good question often you get an answer from the developer directly. It's improved quite a bit since the last time I was messing around with it. Esp. good if you have broadband.

[MilesAhead]

I just tried the Auslogics Defrag 2.0 beta today. Has a new layout with checkboxes for multiple drives. Also you can exclude folders from defrag to avoid defragging giant video files or whatnot. Also added an analyze only gizmo to one of the menus. It's hard to tell since I recently defragged my drives, but they claim 30% faster defrag algorithm.

I tried it on Vista 64, Windows7 32 bit, and my USB drive and I didn't notice anything weird so...

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag

[dr_ml422]

Hi Miles. How does it pair up to Defraggler from Piriform? I saw some reviews on the latest free defragglers and defraggler was up there. I think they mentioned Auslogics, but not sure if it was that highly recommended compared to the others.

[PurpleDemon]

Giveaway of the Day - Wondershare Photo Collage Studio 4.2.9.1

June 15, 2009


Wondershare Photo Collage Studio 4.2.9 is a simple yet powerful tool to make amazing photo collages and digital scrapbooks for print. With plenty designed templates, clip arts and photo frames, you can easily assemble your still photos into an artistic compilation. What’s more, you can create photo books, greeting cards, calendar and more you can image. Try to make this Father’s Day more fun and impressive with it now!
Features:

* Turn photos into collage and scrapbook;
* Plenty collage templates and layouts;
* Multiple-page Designs;
* Wordart, cliparts, stamps & more;
* Photo retouching and effects;
* Magic doodle drawing;
* DIY personalized calendar;
* Print directly to share anywhere;
* Save as JPG, JEPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF formats;
* Quick and helpful online support.

I used this software to make calender tops for my family. They turned out super.

I highly recommend from personal experience.

[MilesAhead]

Hi Miles. How does it pair up to Defraggler from Piriform? I saw some reviews on the latest free defragglers and defraggler was up there. I think they mentioned Auslogics, but not sure if it was that highly recommended compared to the others.

It's not the highest rated. I use it because in all the versions I've installed and tried over serveral flavors of Windows I had one glitch starting and stopping and deleting files, then continuing the defrag. It's a good fast "quick and dirty" defragger.

Every now and then I use the windows defragger to defrag boot files:
defrag c: -b

I can't see buying a defragger to get that. Also, to me, "defragging in the background" is an oxymoron. I do manual defrags, quick, not thorough, but often. To me the trick is keeping lots of free disk space.

I haven't tried all the other ones out there. I did one that was supposed to defrag boot files, but it told me it had to be run on bootup. So when I checked the box to run at bootup, it ran at bootup every boot!! It never cleared the "dirty bit" on the drive. Lots of fun clearing that off!!

To me it's more important that it's fast and makes the disk access smoother. A super thorough defrag that takes 10 hours isn't likely to be run every day. A quicky that takes 7 minutes is. Just my philosophy. Everyone has their own ideas and preferences. I try to stay out of the "the defragger I use is better than yours" arguments. It's just a waste of time.

[dr_ml422]

Thnx for the info. I just wanted some reference as you well know how reviews can be from 1 site to another. I used Defraggler once just to see how it went. Pretty much simple as their other freebies like Ccleaner.

1 mistake I made was running a defrag on my backup HDD w/all my video files. It's a 1 TB. I'm so here n there lately I realized after a bit wth I was doing. Lol... It's a damn Backup not a OS. I could care less about how the video backup drive is. If you know what I mean. I just use it to plug into my Docking Station and burn w/e w/ImgBurn.

[MilesAhead]

I gotcha'. Different people have different strategies too. Not everyone can run with 70% or higher free drive space. I don't believe one size fits all. Now and then you find a super piece of software that you can say, "yeah, that's the best of its type" but most of the time you can find several alternatives with various pros and cons to using them, depending on your setup, how you like to work etc..