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Showing posts from May, 2010

Free download Ashampoo Burning Studio 2010 Advanced

The full version of Ashampoo Burning Studio 2010 Advanced is currently available for download through V3.co.uk Software Store, from May 28 through to midnight May 30, 2010. Those who wish to avail this offer should register an account at V3.co.uk and download the $50 worth software from this page . Registration is free.

SubMaster is an awesome visual subtitle editor and translator

Most movie subtitles you find on Internet doesn’t need to be edited or time-synced. Simply load them into your favorite movie player and they work, just like that. This is true for only new and popular movies, however. Try finding subtitles for some obscure movie and you will be lucky to get one. Even if you do, it’s likely to have lots of errors in transcriptions/translations of dialogs and annoyingly out of sync.

FolderSpy monitors folders for file changes

FolderSPy is a tiny application that allows you to monitor any directory for any changes. The changes might include creation of new files, file deletion, file modification or even renaming. FolderSpy can then alert you with a sound alarm whenever it detects a change. It can even detect changes in file and folder size.

How to create hidden images that show only on Internet Explorer

Here is a nice trick you can use to spook your friends. It’s an old trick but still a good one. Show your friends an innocent looking, ordinary image like the one below (no offense to the photographer, it’s a brilliant shot!).

21 fresh cursor packs for Windows XP and 7

You frequently change your Windows desktop wallpaper. Adventurous ones probably apply a custom theme and even a new icon set every once in a while. But why stop there? Go ahead and choose a new mouse cursor to make the customization complete.

New Mozy 2.0 does local backups too

Online backup service Mozy just announced a new client software for Windows called Mozy 2.0 with some notable changes. One that’s worth taking note of is the program’s ability to perform local backup in addition to online backups.

Lady Gaga says downloading her music illegally is OK

At a time when the entire music industry, music label companies and anti-piracy groups are going after torrent sites and illegal file downloaders, it’s satisfying to learn that there is at least one individual who really understands how the Internet works and how to leverage it to their advantage.

NASA seeks your help to find craters on the Moon

After the hugely successful crowd sourcing venture Galaxy Zoo , the creator Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott is calling out to citizen scientist once again to take part in his latest project Moon Zoo.

Nitro PDF Reader - Free PDF reader, editor and creator

Nitro PDF Reader is a free PDF solution for Windows with features generally unheard of on free products. Most free PDF applications are either a viewer (or reader) or a virtual PDF printer that allows documents to PDF conversion. Nitro PDF Reader does both and additionally allows editing of PDF files.

Speed up Windows boot time with Soluto

An Israel based startup has recently launched a new software application called Solute, which was unveiled during the ongoing TechCrunch Disrupt. Calling itself the “anti-frustration software”, Soluto helps users understand the boot process and discover which applications are slowing it down, and then helps them to significantly improve it.

Google reveals AdSense revenue share data

For a long time, the percentage of revenue Google shares with publishers on the Adsense program has been subject to much speculation. Today these were finally laid to rest when Google publicly announced, for the first time, how much revenue the company shares with content publishers through the Adsense program.

gdipp – Alternative Windows Font Render

Although Windows own ClearType font render works reasonably well on LCD screens as well as CRT monitors, an open source project is working on an alternative Windows font renderer.

Password protect specific bookmark links on Firefox

You may have some sites you visit regularly but you wouldn’t want others to know. It could be a link to your secret blog or your bank’s website or you know, those kind of sites. Not only you have to type these URLs into the address bar every time you wish to open them, you have to memorize them too because you can’t keep them bookmarked. If only there was a way by which you could hide those links on your bookmark list.

Coranti – Multiple scanning engine (4-in-1) Antivirus

Years of research and testing by security companies and independent testers alike have taught us that a single anti-virus software is incapable of detecting all virus and malware out loose in the wild. All anti-virus scanners are blind to a small percentage of malware, but given the astronomical number of worms and viruses crawling through the interwebs, even that small percentage adds up to a couple of hundreds.

Embed Google’s Pac Man game on your own webpage

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the most popular video game of all time, Pac Man, Google put a playable version of the game on Google’s home page on May 21. It’s no longer on the page now but I hope you did catch it at least once during the 48 hours when it was up.

Windows Media Player Plus! plug-in for WMP

Hardcore music listeners never use Windows Media Player for listening to music or managing their collection as third party software offer better features and functionality. One good thing about Windows Media Player is that it supports plug-ins that allows developers and fans to generate greater appeal for the player by extending it’s functionality through useful plug-ins.

Google launches secure encrypted web search

Last week we mentioned Google dropping hints about bringing encrypted web search to the search engine. Today a blog post announced it’s launch.

Whoa! This Twitter Parade makes me feel important

Some Japanese developers have created a funny Twitter application called IsParade that shows your Twitter followers literally following you in a parade.

Free Handy Backup Licenses Giveaway #3

We have given away Handy Backup licenses twice before . Since our last giveaway on December 2009, four new versions of the software has been released which brought several new features among numerous updates, fixes and improvements to the product. It’s about time we do another round of giveaway.

Google introduces Adsense for non-Google search results

The Google Adsense program offers publishers several different ways to add Adsense advertisements on their site. The two most popular and commonly used formats are in-page contextual ads and ads on Google powered search results page.

Extend Windows 7 trial period forever with Infinite Rearm

Windows 7 has a hidden “rearm” command that can extend Windows activation grace period of 30 days by an additional 30 days. The rearm command can be used up to 3 times. So if a copy of Windows 7 is rearmed on the last day of every 30 day period, a user can use the operating system up to 120 days without activation.

2 tools to bypass boot manager and restart into Linux or Windows

Those who run multiple operating system on a single machine and need to frequently reboot from one to another, know how tedious it is to sit around waiting for the boot screen to load so that you may select the operating system to boot. The boot manager, on the other hand, doesn’t wait for you. If you don’t act within a specified time frame it will swiftly boot into the default selection, and if that happens you have start all over again.

RAMMap – Physical memory usage analysis tool from Sysinternals

Not too long ago, Windows Sysinternals released a virtual and physical memory analysis tool called VMMap that enabled software developers and users alike to find out how a process is using the virtual memory. Today the Sysinternals team released another memory analysis tool called RAMMap.

Jumplist Extender adds Windows 7 Jumplists to any programs

Windows 7 Jumplists are pretty nifty. Unfortunately a lot of programs are yet to take advantage of this feature. This is where tools like Jumplist Extender comes in.

Winyl – A simple but attractive new audio player

Years ago the only decent audio player available for Windows was Winamp. You would find one copy on every machine during the Windows 98 era and the early days of Windows XP. Today users have more choice and much better audio players and organizers – Foobar2000, AIMP and MediaMonkey to name a few.

SaveFace automatically resets Facebook privacy settings

Please pardon the slew of Facebook privacy related posts in recent weeks, and bear with me one more time as I write about yet another application that emerged out of the Facebook privacy mess.

OutSync synchronizes Outlook contacts with Facebook

OutSync is a simple Windows desktop application that syncs photos of your Facebook friends with matching contacts in Microsoft Outlook.

Idle keyboard makes you sound busy when you are not

Here at Instant Fundas we have a detailed guide and numerous tips on how to surf at work surreptitiously. These are really good to save your skin if a colleague or a boss happen to stop by your cubicle. But the complete silence at your cubicle while you surf the Internet might get you suspicious looks from co-workers.

WiseStamp adds customized email signatures on any webmail

WiseStamp is a browser plug-in for Firefox and Chrome (available also for the email client Thunderbird), that allows you to embed a surprisingly wide variety of customized and personalized signatures on your email messages. These include adding links to latest blog post, bookmarks, pictures, videos, Twitter and Facebook status and so on.

Seagate planning a hybrid SSD+Disk drive

If the rumor is true, then soon we will be seeing a new kind of hard disk drive from Seagate - one that is a combination of the flashy new Solid State Drive and the traditional spinning disk platter drive.

ReclaimPrivacy: Facebook privacy scanner

With over 170 options to choose from, Facebook’s privacy settings are a nightmare for a user who just wants to keep in touch with his friends. A newly launched website called ReclaimPrivacy will help you get your privacy settings right.

Openbook: Search public Facebook updates without logging in

You do know your Facebook wall updates are publicly searchable, don’t you? Well, if you don’t, there is a new site that shows you how scary and embarrassing the situation is.

Boston Globe Big Picture gallery downloader

The Boston Globe’s Big Picture series is one of the finest example of photojournalism on the Internet. Updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, The Big Picture summarizes major world events in 30 or so large format, high quality pictures with brief captions accompanying each photo.

Free download Advanced SystemCare PRO Edition

Advanced SystemCare Pro, formerly known as Advanced WindowsCare, provides an always-on, automated, all-in-one PC Healthcare Service with anti-spyware, privacy protection, performance tune-ups, and system cleaning capabilities. This powerful tool fixes stubborn errors, cleans out clutter, optimizes Internet and download speeds, ensures personal security, and maintains maximum computer performance automatically.

Google to offer encrypted search next week

Google plans to allows users to run encrypted search by next week, it announced in a blog post on Friday. Ironically, the announcement of the upcoming and rather important change came in a blog post explaining that Google had been mistakenly eavesdropping on unencrypted wi-fi networks as its Street View cars were taking pictures of cities around the world.

MoonyDesk is a gorgeous new desktop widget engine

Widgets on the desktop might seem useless from a practical standpoint, but you can’t deny their awesomeness. Widgets look stunning on the desktop, and at times they are actually quite useful . So if you are okay with the idea of running widgets, I recommend you to check out MoonyDesk.

What’s behind Wikipedia’s puzzle globe?

If you have visited Wikipedia during the last 48 hours or so you must have noticed that the online encyclopedia now sports a soothing new look. The new theme is called Vector and aside from the looks include improved navigation for reading and editing pages.

Import, Export and Backup Opera profile and settings

Backing up Opera browser’s profile settings manually is easy but clumsy and require you to backup several different folders/files, feeds, bookmarks separately. To help you in this process we have a freeware tool simply called Opera Settings Import & Export Tool.

Product Observer – Price tracker browser plug-in

Product Observer is a browser addon for Firefox and Internet Explorer that can monitor the price of a chosen product on a shopping site and alert you when the price drops. This helps you save money as well as save yourself from having to keep track of the prices manually.

Facebook’s privacy policy is longer than the United States Constitution

At the turn of the new year (from December 2009, actually), Facebook brought dramatic changes to their privacy policy requiring users to opt out if they wish to keep information private. This means that most of that information is public by default and now some personal data is even shared with third-party Web sites.

Free download Portal for PC and Mac until May 24

In celebration of the launch of Steam for Mac, Valve Corporation is giving away the game Portal for free. This promotion is different from the usual “free weekend” offer. Portal is free for everyone to keep forever on their PC, as long as they download it before May 24.

YouTube now lets you keep public videos out of search results

Until now, there were only two options when you upload a video to YouTube – either make it public or make it private. Making it public meant anybody can view the video without logging into YouTube and the videos will appear on search results and recommended videos. Private videos is the other extreme – only specific YouTube users can view them. Today YouTube rolled out a third option, Unlisted, whose privacy option lies in between the two.

Recover lost hard disk space with DiskMax

DiskMax is a powerful hard disk file cleaning software that makes other file cleaning software like CCleaner look like a minnow. (Actually, CCleaner is too basic. Try nCleaner instead).

Mozilla’s insecure plug-in check for all browsers

Mozilla has introduced a service that allows users of other browsers – Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera and Safari, to test whether they are running bug-free versions of plug-ins on their browsers.

VideoSurf - Get video summaries before you click

Remember Rick Roll? If only there was a way to peek into the videos before playing them. Think of all the hours of your life you have wasted watching totally irrelevant videos because there was no way you could know what a video contains without watching them.

Driver Sweeper removes leftover after driver uninstall

With only a few exception, a majority of uninstallers that come with software applications are pure junk. These uninstallers remove only the core files- the executables and binaries and retain user files, configuration files, DLL files and other stuff making your system drive a junkyard.

Mandriva up for sale. Linagora confirms takeover

In case you are using Mandriva, the once popular Linux distribution, you might be interested in knowing that the French company is now up for sale. According to Mandriva Linux Online , the firm is in deep financial trouble and getting sold is the next best option to total closure. I’m sure there are still many Mandriva fans out there and they wouldn’t like the distribution to disappear.

DocTranslator translates Word document online while preserving layout

DocTranslator is an online file translation service that uses the Google Translate service to translate DOC, DOCX, PPT, XLS, XML and TXT files.

Create custom Windows Run Commands with Run Manager

There are hundreds of Run commands for Windows – some of them are very popular and are frequently used and seen in articles like the regedit command or msconfig command. Some others, while not so popular , bring handy file browsing capabilities to Windows. Together with the new Vista/7 Start Menu, the Run tool provides an excellent user experience for keyboard junkies .

Use Google Docs as LaTeX editor

In case you you are not familiar with LaTeX, here is a brief description: LaTeX is a document markup language based on the idea that authors should be able to focus on the content of what they are writing without being distracted by its visual presentation.

How to remove the new Google sidebar from search page

Some weeks ago I wrote that Google had rolled out a new design for their search page. Later it turned out to be just a test run. The real changes went live yesterday. Anyway, if the sidebar is annoying you and you wish to go back to the old design, this is what you need to do.

AM-Notebook is an All-in-One life organizing utility

AM-Notebook Lite is a software that has notes, to-do list , calendar, contact book and a simple spreadsheet application all rolled into one. This comprehensive life-organizer comes free of cost, although if you are willing to fork out some 30 odd Euros you can upgrade it to get plenty of more features. For now, we will restrict ourselves to the free version.

Convert a collection of images into a PDF file

One easy way to convert an image into a PDF file is to use a virtual PDF printer or file conversion software such as Omniformat . But what if you have a collection of images that you want to consolidate into a single PDF file. This is where a general file conversion utility fails.

Alert: New Facebook bug secretly add apps to your profile

In a new privacy scare, several blogs reported a sneaky new security hole on Facebook yesterday. It was discovered that when you visit certain sites while logged in to Facebook, an app for those sites will be quietly added to your Facebook profile. Facebook displays no dialogue box or notification window asking permission.

Microsoft Image Composite Editor – Advanced panorama creator

Microsoft Image Composite Editor is an advanced panoramic image stitcher for Windows that can create high-resolution panoramas from a set of overlapping photographs of a scene shot from a single camera location.

Make your computer sound like those in movies

You must have noticed computers in movies keep making weird beeps and sounds whenever the actor is using the keyboard or hacking into the mainframe. Thanks to Nullsoft (the makers of Winamp), you can replicate these sounds on your computer.

Zoner Photo Studio Free – Photo editing tool for the masses

A large number of users find Adobe Photoshop and applications of similar caliber too intimidating, and rightly so. After all how many point and shoot digital camera owners understand histograms and gradient map, or know how to use the Healing brush. It’s like asking them to mash potatoes with a sledgehammer. What these folks need is a simplified, automated image editing tool, and Zoner Photo Studio Free fits the requirements.

3D virtual tour of Anne Frank’s Secret Annex

To mark the 50th anniversary, the Anne Frank Museum has launched a virtual tour of the house where the 13 year old penned the most famous diary in history, hiding from the Nazis during World War II. The amazing reconstruction allows visitors to explore the entire house as well as the garden in three-dimension while a voiceover gives you a description of what you are seeing.

Synchronize files between Skydrive and your computer

You must be aware of applications such as Skydrive Explorer and Gladinet that lets you use your online Skydrive account as a local folder on the hard disk. Although these tools make it easy for the user to access files on Skydrive as if they are stored locally, what these applications are missing is a synchronizer.

Add elevator music to Windows progress bars!

Instant Elevator Music is a fun little application that sits on the system tray and automatically starts playing cozy elevator music whenever a progress bar appears on the screen.

Windows 7 Taskbar Separators

The Windows 7 taskbar is designed such that it can used as a dockbar . So if you are using like one you are probably missing one item that every dockbar software generally has – the separator.

Enhance, fix shaky home videos with vReveal [Must-have]

Home videos are generally unappealing. The under exposed, shaky, pixilated and out-of-focus videos of your kids blowing the birthday candles doesn’t do justice to the dollars you spent on your camcorder. So either you train up the amateur photographer in you or get this amazing piece of software I’m going to introduce today.

Granola reduces computer power consumption by scaling the CPU

Granola is a safe to use power management software for x86 based systems, laptops, and PCs running Linux and Windows that reduces power consumption by the computer by automatically optimizing the system to use energy more efficiently without compromising performance or availability.