Mike Williams

Sophos has released a free on-demand Virus Removal Tool. The program previously was available to the company’s larger customers to help them clean up infected PCs, but now to anyone to download.

The Virus Removal Tool is extremely easy to use, with no settings to configure, no scan modes to figure out: it’s purely about on-demand full system scans. But this simplicity does mean you should be able to install the program and run it alongside just about any other security suite, as there’s no real-time access component to cause conflicts.

Continue reading →

Diagram creation software can be on the expensive side, just take a look at Visio, for instance, but if that’s a problem for you then there are some great free tools around. And Dia is one of the best.

The program may open with a standard list of flowcharting shapes, for instance, but it also provides plenty of other symbol libraries. Just choose the one you need and you’ll be able to draw logic diagrams, electrical circuits, networks, databases, simple maps and much more.

Continue reading →

If you believe your PC has been infected by malware then you’ll probably try to launch Task Manager in an effort to find out more. But of course malware authors are well aware of this, and in some cases they’ll try to protect themselves by disabling Task Manager and similar tools.

As long as you can launch Excel 2010, though, you do have another option in Didier Steven’s TaskManager.xls. It’s a basic Task Manager alternative in a spreadsheet, which not only lists the processes running on your PC, but also enables you to close or suspend any that you don’t need.

Continue reading →

Analyzing file structures can be a complicated business, and definitely isn’t for the technically faint of heart. It can be useful for troubleshooting or security analysis purposes, though, or even when trying to identify a mystery file you’ve found somewhere on your PC. And whatever it is you’re trying to do, FileScanner is an interesting Java-based tool which just might be able to help.

The analysis process starts simply enough. Click File > Open File, or just drag and drop the target file onto FileScanner and it’ll automatically check the contents, before giving you a detailed report.

Continue reading →

Last week, Microsoft quietly released a public beta of Bing Desktop, a toolbar that brings Bing searches to your desktop (as long as it’s Windows 7, at least -- the program isn’t available for earlier versions of Windows).

And if that’s not quite enough to interest you, then the program can also double as a wallpaper changer, with its option to download and use the daily Bing image.

Continue reading →

The PC world has so many image viewers already that downloading another probably isn’t high on your list of priorities. GonVisor is a little different, though, and just might be good enough to justify your giving it a closer look.

The program works well as a comic viewer, for instance, and is able to open all the usual CB formats (CBR, CBZ, CBA, CB7). You’ve no interest in digital comics? No problem, GonVisor can also open and view the images in folders and archives (ZIP, RAR, ACE, 7Z), as well as display individual image files.

Continue reading →

At first glance PTray doesn’t seem like the most interesting of tools. Does the world really need another CPU monitor? Probably not: on the rare occasions that we care about our CPU utilization, Task Manager and Performance Monitor generally tell us everything we need to know.

Take a closer look, though, and you’ll find there’s a little to more to the program than meets the eye.

Continue reading →

With a host of free media organizers around, selling commercial equivalents can be something of a challenge. CyberLink isn’t giving up just yet, though, and its latest release, MediaShow 6, has some interesting new features to help it stand out from the crowd.

Top of the list must be the program’s new 3D support. MediaShow can now display 3D MPO pictures and videos, for instance. Or, if you don’t have any, it can convert your 2D photos or videos to 3D. MediaShow 6 can edit them, too, and when you’re happy is able to export the finished results as a 3D movie, or by burning your files to a 3D DVD or Blu-ray disc.

Continue reading →

If you’ve ever thought Windows really should make better use of your mouse wheel, then Feel the Wheel will probably be of interest. It’s a tiny portable tool, and we do mean tiny, a 4.5KB download, which allows you to resize windows or tweak their transparency with the mouse wheel alone.

To give this a try, grab your copy of the download file, unzip it somewhere safe, double-click FeeWhee.exe and a high-pitched beep will tell you it’s loaded.

Continue reading →

When you need to convert, resize or otherwise process a set of images then of course you could work with them all individually. And that will probably deliver the best results as you can tailor your tweaks to whatever each image requires. But if you’ve not just 4 or 5 photos, but 20, 50, 100 or more than you may want to look for a little batch processing assistance from a tool like ImBatch.

Getting started is as easy as dragging and dropping your preferred images onto the program. ImBatch imports all the usual formats -- PNG, JPG, GIF, BMP and so on -- as well as many other file types which you might not expect (PSD, TGA, PCX, TIFF, WDP, HDP and more).

Continue reading →

There are plenty of PC monitoring programs that aim to keep an eye on your running processes, and carry out some actions if things seem to be going wrong (PC Lasso is an excellent example). Testing these tools can be a problem, though, as you can’t safely make regular programs hang or lock up on demand.

But then that’s where Bad Application comes in.

Continue reading →

If you’re unhappy with the composition of a photo then your first instinct may be to crop it, removing areas without important visual content to help the viewer concentrate on whatever is left. But this can only go so far. And if there’s plenty of content at the edge of the photo then you may hardly be able to crop the image at all.

Content-aware image resizing (CAIR) provides another, more intelligent way to reframe your shot. Essentially it allows you to define content you’d like to remove from a photo, wherever it might be, and can then strip it out (hopefully without leaving any trace). And as a result the image will shrink in size, sometimes dramatically, but you still retain the core content. (If you’re not sure what we mean then the relevant Wikipedia page has some sample images which should make everything clear.)

Continue reading →

Some people see WYSIWYG web builders as basic, limited, strictly for novice home users who’ll be satisfied with the poor quality templates and limited customisation options they usually offer.

Xara Web Designer MX 8 Premium, fortunately, has a very different philosophy.

Continue reading →

Genie9 has released the latest edition of its flagship backup tool, Timeline 2012.

The program’s emphasis remains very much on ease of use, but there are some practical new features, too. Genie Timeline’s new Metro-style Smart Selection screen makes it very easy to choose the type of files you’d like to back up for instance: Office files, emails, bookmarks, videos, pictures, whatever it might be.

Continue reading →

If your PC isn’t working properly then Microsoft’s Fix it Solution Center is a great place to start looking for solutions. It has troubleshooters to address problems with performance, stability, security, media playback and a whole lot more, and most of these can be launched in just a couple of clicks.

Of course if your PC isn’t connected to the internet, and network connectivity might be the very reason you need some help, then the site isn’t going to be able to help. But fortunately there’s also a local version available in the shape on Microsoft Fix it Portable, and while it has some problems the program could be a welcome addition to your troubleshooting toolkit.

Continue reading →