Mike Williams

Windows Search is a powerful tool, there’s no doubt about that. Its powerful indexing engine understands all kinds of file metadata, enabling you to search for documents by a particular author, music from your favorite artist, photos taken by a specific camera model and a whole lot more.

Many people are still less than enthusiastic about the technology, though. In particular, the indexing process is often reported to consume more resources than it should, and the filters can be awkward to use. But if you’d prefer something simpler, then there are plenty of alternatives around, and the portable Instant File Search Professional, just a single 618KB executable, is certainly more convenient to use than most.

Continue reading →

Equipping a PC to handle all your graphics needs can be a complex and expensive business. You’ll need one application to retouch your photos, another for drawing and illustration, and then there’s web graphics, desktop publishing -- and the list goes on.

If you prefer a simple life, though, you could just grab a copy of Xara Xtreme 5. The program can retouch photos; draw everything from simple business logos to complex technical illustrations; design greetings cards, invitations, calendars and more; and even produce web graphics, simple Flash animations or complete websites without worrying about code. And if you take advantage of our giveaway then you can have your copy, worth $79.99, for free.

Continue reading →

If the regular Windows Task Manager isn’t powerful for your needs then most people will recommend you try something like Process Explorer or Process Hacker. But while these are great programs, they’re also packed with highly technical details and options, which may seem intimidating if you’re not totally familiar with how Windows works.

Sounds familiar? If you’ve found this to be a problem before then you might prefer MiTeC’s Task Manager DeLuxe. It’s a free and portable tool that delivers more functionality than you get from Windows alone -- in some areas, at least - but won’t expose you to the low-level complexities you’ll often see elsewhere.

Continue reading →

Managing a Windows network can be a full-time job; there’s always one problem or another demanding your attention. You could run around from computer to computer, addressing issues as they crop up. But you may be able to save some time and trouble by using PAExec, which can launch programs on remote PCs, and (if they’re console applications) redirect their output back to your own system.

Enter a command like  PAExec \\{SystemName} -s cmd.exe, for instance, and PAExec will connect to the specified system and open a command prompt there. You’ll then be able to enter regular Windows commands to find out more about the issue, they’ll be executed on the SystemName computer, and you’ll see the results on your own PC.

Continue reading →

IObit’s do-everything PC maintenance suite, Advanced SystemCare, has today been updated to version 5.2. And top of the changelog this time is the new support for Windows 8 Consumer Preview. (Whether anyone’s spending enough time using Windows 8 to require a maintenance suite is another issue, of course, but it’s still a welcome addition here.)

IObit also report optimizations and improvements in just about every SystemCare module: PC Health, Performance Monitor, Privacy Sweep, Turbo Boost, Registry Fix, Malware Removal, System Optimisation, Disk Defragment, Shortcut Fix, Disk Cleaner and Cloned Files Scanner.

Continue reading →

Oracle today released VirtualBox 4.1.10. The build is essentially a maintenance release, but it’s wide ranging enough to make it worth installing. Assorted additions include SSL/TLS support for VirtualBox’s web service, for instance. The changelog notes “some Windows 8 adaptions” in this build, though it doesn’t tell us any more. And the Linux build gains support for X.Org Server 1.12.

Elsewhere, notable bug fixes include several that will improve system stability. A possible guest memory corruption issue has been addressed; the Linux build will now properly flush all data when closing a memory-mapped file on a shared folder; and a bug which could result in corruption when compacting VDI or VHD images with snapshots has also been resolved.

Continue reading →

Comodo Group’s Internet Security, Antivirus and Firewall packages have been upgraded to build 5.10.228257.2253, which is now available for download.

This is a maintenance release, but it’s an important one that addresses some significant issues. If you’re a Windows 7 x64 user, for instance, you might have come across a situation where loading corrupted executables would cause a blue-screen crash: that’s now fixed. And Comodo report that “compatibility with other security suites is improved”, again, specifically for Windows 7 x64 users.

Continue reading →

Applications that need to be running all the time, servers, say, often install themselves as Windows services, and one reason for that is there’s a flexible recovery mechanism that will kick in if the program fails. You can have Windows try to restart the service, launch some other program, even reboot the PC in an effort to get everything working again.

Ordinary programs have nothing similar, of course, but that’s where Restarter comes in. If an application simply must be running all the time, then tell Restarter, and if the program fails or is accidentally closed then it’ll automatically relaunch it for you.

Continue reading →

If you’re looking for a free partitioning tool then there’s no shortage of competition around, but you need to choose carefully. And this is particularly true if you’re considering free versions of commercial products, which often include annoying restrictions and limitations in an effort to persuade you to upgrade.

With this in mind, then, we were initially suspicious of Aomei Technology’s latest Partition Assistant Home Edition. It would probably have a restrictive licensing agreement, yes? Demand registration before you can use it? Have a host of functions which won’t work until you buy?

Continue reading →

When you need to distribute a set of files then it can often be useful to give them all the same timestamp. In part this makes sure you’re not inadvertently giving away information (maybe you don’t want people to know that a group of files in some new project was actually grabbed from something you did years earlier, for instance). But it’s also neater, and makes it easier to identify the file later. If you need to know which version of a document someone has, say, then just being given its date, which is very simple to find, may be enough.

Windows doesn’t provide an easy way to modify timestamps itself, unfortunately, but there are plenty of free utilities around to fill the gap. And if you need a portable tool to carry out this kind of task then NewFileTime could be ideal.

Continue reading →

Keeping your hard drives in order is a complex task that can often require an entire library of tools and utilities. Or, alternatively, you could just install Paragon Software’s Hard Disk Manager 12 Suite, which the company claims will provide everything you need to protect, maintain and manage your drives in a single application.

And an initial glance at the program’s lengthy feature list suggests they may have a point: there are partitioning tools, multiple backup options, copying and system migration tools, a defrag utility, secure wiping tool and a bootable disaster recovery disc.

Continue reading →

When you’re looking to capture a moment in time then your first instinct might be to take a still photo. Getting this right is a challenge, though -- it takes skill and great timing to produce quality results.

And while taking a video seems easier, you can often end up with too much information -- shaky camerawork, noise and background clutter -- which only takes away from what should be the real focus of your movie. But now there’s a third option, in Microsoft Research’s newly-released Cliplets, which produces something that’s part still photo, yet also includes motion in just the area that matters to you.

Continue reading →

Shutting down your PC is normally a fairly straightforward process (unless you’re running Windows 8 , but that’s another story). Your work is done, documents saved, applications closed, so you just hit the Shutdown button and Windows takes care of the rest.

If some important task hasn’t completed, though -- a file is still being downloaded, or a video file rendered -- then life is a little more complicated. You can still have your PC shut down automatically when the job has finished, but you’ll need a little third-party help to make this happen. And that’s where Chameleon Shutdown comes in.

Continue reading →

If you need to investigate the inner workings of an SWF applet then there are plenty of great free tools around that can help (Flashbug being particularly useful). It seems these are now going to have some major and official competition, though, as Adobe Labs have just released a major inspection tool of their own in the new SWF Investigator.

Open the SWF file of your choice -- either locally, or online -- and the program will tell you much more about it. The SWF Info tab displays its tags, exported classes and header information; the Disassembler works with ActionScript 2.0 or 3.0 content to give you an idea of the original code; the Hex Viewer allows you to view and edit the raw SWF bytes, and the Strings pane displays any embedded strings within ActionScript 3.0 content.

Continue reading →

CyberLink may be a huge name in the video world, thanks to powerful applications like PowerDirector, but when it comes to photo workflow applications, they’re still relative beginners. And so it was no surprise that PhotoDirector 2011 was more about learning from the competition than leading the way. Still, the end result was a very capable budget Lightroom clone, providing plenty of features to help you organize, optimize and share your photos at a fraction of the cost of the high-end competition.

The company was clearly just getting started, though, as the latest release, PhotoDirector 3, represents a major upgrade for the product. Forget the usual minor cosmetic tweaks, the program is packed with important new features and functionality. If you’ve any interest in photo workflow tools at all then you need to give this one a closer look.

Continue reading →