Mike Williams

Sharing a screen capture with someone else can require many steps. You might take the screenshot, save it as a file, maybe attach that to an email, add a few text notes, then click Send and wait.

ScreenShooter is a free portable tool which allows you to capture an image, add text or highlighting, and share it immediately via the program’s own server.

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There are many ways an attacker might try to compromise your PC, and one common option is to download and run an executable without your knowledge. If your antivirus engine doesn’t recognize the threat then that could leave you with a serious problem.

Run ExeWatch and it might be a different story. The program watches your local drives, looking out for new executable files, and raises an alert the moment anything appears -- downloaded, extracted from an archive, written by some other program, whatever it might be. It has no malware-removal abilities, but that early warning may still save you a lot of pain.

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If you need to know more about a Windows executable then there are plenty of low-level tools which can help: PEStudio analyses the file itself, Resource Hacker gives you access to its icons and images, Process Monitor records what it does, and so on.

Flash files -- SWFs -- aren’t as well supported, but you do have a few options, and JPEXS Free Flash Decompiler is one of the best.

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Creating Windows icons can be a challenge. Regular image editors aren’t optimized for the process -- that’s if they have ICO support at all -- while specialist icon designers are often bulky and complex.

Seanau Icon Toolkit is a free icon editor which applies a few tricks to make the process much more straightforward.

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Microsoft Sysinternals has announced the latest round of updates for its stellar PC maintenance tools.

Startup program detector Autoruns 13.4 now reports Office add-ins, showing you the associated DLLs, their location and VirusTotal score.

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If you’re an experienced computer user then you probably don’t spend much time thinking about archive formats. You’ve just installed something like 7-Zip and are ready to extract whatever you find.

Not everyone is as well equipped, though, so if you’re sharing something like a .gz with others then it might be wise to convert it to a more basic .zip, first.

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Launch Windows desktop calculator Reor for the first time and it’s tempting to think: is that it? The tiny interface really is stripped back, with little more than a numeric keypad, four operators and an equals button.

But wait. There’s more. And clicking on the Menu button reveals all.

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You're busy working on your PC. Everything seems fine. But then, without warning, an error message tells you that some irreplaceable files have been lost forever.

It's horrible. A nightmare. But if you're the twisted type then you can now bring this experience to your friends, with a little help from Windows Error Message Creator (WEMC).

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IObit has launched IObit Game Assistant 3, a major update for its simple game launcher/ monitor/ manager.

The program automatically recognizes more than 4,000 games, and its launcher can now -- at last -- organize them into categories. As before, you’re free to add local or web-based games as required.

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Search engine optimization software is usually all about keywords, helping you find what’s going to work for you, and optimizing your content and site structure to deliver better search engine rankings.

Despite its name, Darcy SEO Checker doesn’t bother with any of that, instead spidering across your site to check for HTTP error codes, URL issues, description and title problems, and more.

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Xara Group has unveiled the latest generation of its WYSIWYG website builders, Web Designer 11 ($49.99) and Web Designer Premium 11 ($99.99).

Both editions include a beta of cloud.xara, which allows Xara sites to be viewed, edited and updated from a browser on any device.

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Nektra Advanced Computing has announced that its system monitoring tool SpyStudio 32-bit/ 64-bit is now free for both personal and commercial use.

An essential download for geeks everywhere, SpyStudio reveals a host of low-level details on what a process is really doing: the files and Registry keys it’s accessing, the windows it creates, COM objects instanced, API calls made, and more.

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Binary Fortress has launched VoiceBot, a macro manager for Windows Vista+ which allows you to control games and other applications with spoken commands.

At its simplest, you might have VoiceBot recognize the word "New", then issue the command Alt+F > N. Quick, easy, and works almost everywhere.

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Microsoft has launched a preview of Office for Android smartphones. Pre-release versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint are available for phones running Android 4.4 or later.

Functionality looks much the same as the previous tablet-oriented releases, with support for creating and opening the same documents you’re using now, and the ability to save files to OneDrive (+ For Business), Dropbox and SharePoint. While you won’t need an Office 365 subscription this time, getting hold of the apps still takes a little work. You must first sign up to the official Microsoft Office for Android community, then wait for up to four hours for your tester’s permissions to be replicated before you can download.

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Panda Security has announced the first public beta of Panda Global Protection 2016, a revamp of its comprehensive all-round security suite.

The new release provides enhanced Wi-Fi protection, detecting and alerting you to potential vulnerabilities. An extended PC Tuneup module frees up hard drive space, cleans the Registry and gives control over your Windows startup programs.

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