Zipper/Unzipper - Not For Your Pants But For Your Files

WinRAR is one of several software that I use on a constant basis that I would willingly pay for.  It opens just about every zip files I need like zip, rar, tar, ace, ect.  Not only that, it is also able to open ISO files.  You have the normal right-mouse click menu that enables you to compress your file.  While clicking on a compressed file,  you are given an option of extracting to current folder or creating a folder with the name of the file and extracting there.  Overall, it is very easy to use and is very worthy of the money you need to pay in order to get rid of the nagging splash page.

Platform: Windows
Price: $29
Website: http://www.rarlab.com/index.htm

Decent Free Anti-Adware

Since I blogged about two free anti-virus, I might as well show you two decent free anti-adware/anti-spyware. Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE Personal and Spybot Search&Destroy are pretty good anti-spyware considering they are free. Both of these run pretty well on my computer. I noticed that it is actually pretty good to have both of these installed because what one misses the other may catch.  When running this program, it will go through your computer and the registry looking for any suspicious program or entry very similar to that of a anti-virus program would do.  Once suspicious entries are found, the program lists them out for you to decide if you want to remove them or not.  The program also gives you the ability to backup the changes in case you want to roll back your removal.  Overall, these are very decent software to use to help guard against spyware and adware.

Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE Personal
Platform: Windows
Price: Free (Ad-Aware SE Plus $26.95)
Website: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php

Spybot Search&Destroy
Platform: Windows
Price: Free (Donations)
Website: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Decent Free Anti-Virus

Avira AntiVir® PersonalEdition Classic and AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition are two very decent free anti-virus software.  It doesn’t work as well as McAfee or Norton Anti-Virus but that is as expected considering these goes for $39.99 each.  Each of these runs in the background and detects virus.  AVG Anti-Virus also detects virus from incoming email and outgoing email.  However, I found some problems with this feature when trying to download my emails from GMail POP3 service.  I had to disable it for the emails to be downloaded correctly.

Avira AntiVir® PersonalEdition Classic
Platform: Windows
Price: Free (Personal Premium about $25)
Website: http://www.free-av.com/

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
Platform: Windows
Price: Free (Pro Edition $38.95)
Website: http://www.grisoft.com/doc/products-avg-anti-virus-free-edition/lng/us/tpl/tpl01

SoftAwareness – Ep. 03 – Image Resizer

Shows what Microsoft Image Resizer can do and how to use and install the utility.

Link: SoftAwareness Ep. 03 – MP4
Duration: 04:50

Codec Confusion

Have you ever got some weird error about missing codecs when trying to play a video file you downloaded? The video file may even work on one computer while not working on another. (Don’t know what a codec is? Click here to read about it.) Well, it looks like you didn’t install the correct codec for that particular video. So the next questions are; how can a codec be installed, what codec should be installed, and where the heck can I find the codec. To install individual codecs by themselves can be daunting. I go find an installation file in order to install them easier.  As for what codec should be installed. My answer is simple, install it all. Ok, maybe not all, but the most popular ones. Now’s the where. Free-Codecs.com is a good place to start. The installation package I normally install on my PC is called the K-Lite Codec Pack. You may also opt for the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack which includes more applications like Real Alternative and Quicktime Alternative. You can find out what those are in the upcoming episode of the SoftAwareness vidcast. It includes several tools as well as the most popular codecs available. Once this package is installed, you should be able to play just about any time of video file.

Platform: Windows
Price: Free
Website: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Codec_Pack.htm
Website: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Mega_Codec_Pack.htm

GIMP Image Editor

Since I am on the track of freeware, I shouldn’t leave GIMP out of my list even though most of you probably have already heard of it.  But for those that haven’t then read on.  GIMP is a great free image editor.  It stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program and it is of course under the GNU General Public License.  The program is much much better than Paint.  I think it is slightly better than Paint.Net.  GIMP can do the usual things that a good paint program can do like having multiple layers, color manupilation, cropping, and resizing.  So if you don’t want to spend $50 or more on a graphic editor, GIMP may be  your answer.

Platform: Windows, MacOS X, Unix, Linux
Price: Free
Website: http://www.gimp.org/

Taskbar Shuffle (no, it has nothing to do with the iPod Shuffle)

Ok, sometimes I get a bit obsessive compulsive.  I have a good amount of windows opened up while I work or surf the web.  And I generally do not like to group my stupid taskbar items because it is very hard to find the right window with just 5 or 6 characters of description.  Grouping taskbar sucks.  Ok, I feel a little better now.  Taskbar Shuffle helps me be the windows organization geek I always wanted to be by letting me move the items in the Taskbar in any order that I want them to be.  Now I can have all my Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, and other applications in the order I want them to be and not the order that I start up the application.  It’s a dream come true.

Platform: Windows (Macs don’t have this problem)
Price: Free
Website: http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm