Converting regular 2D images to 3D can be a very effective way to give them some extra impact, and it’s simpler than you might think.

PhotoAnim is a formerly commercial, now free application which helps you edit, morph, transform and animate 2D objects, then share the results online, in videos and various 3D formats.

"Easy Disk Drive Repair" looked like a promising program. "An incredibly easy to use, yet powerful drive repair and maintenance tool", the developer claimed. Works with all drive types. More than one million downloads, five star awards plastered all over their product pages, and listed at big sites like Softpedia and ZDNet.

Sounded great, but we don’t like to copy and paste a developer’s description onto our own pages. We wanted to try it out, first.

NirSoft has announced the release of WirelessConnectionInfo, a free tool which displays detailed stats on the active Wi-Fi connection under Windows Vista and later.

The WirelessConnectionInfo report displays 90 items, including network SSID, PHY Type (802.11n, say), signal quality, security algorithm, channel and more.

EaseUS has unveiled EaseUS EverySync 2.0, an easy-to-use file sync and backup tool which works with local and network files, FTP servers, and the cloud storage services OneDrive and Dropbox.

The program supports one way and bidirectional syncing, but once set up, you don’t have to worry about the details: files are synchronized in real time as soon as there are any changes.

If you’d like to share a set of images then you could email them to a few recipients, maybe upload them to Facebook or Twitter.

But if you need more professional results then you might be interested in Arclab Thumb Studio, a powerful freeware tool for building HTML galleries, slideshows and more.

CyberLink has announced the release of Power2Go 10, its one-stop burning, backup and multimedia conversion suite.

The major new functionality is reserved for Power2Go’s Media Converter, which now provides over 150 profiles to help convert your media to a more mobile-friendly format.

Scrabble is a classic word game, every bit as engrossing today as when it first appeared back in 1938.

That’s our view, anyway. But if you’re tired of the regular game, would like to mix it up a little, then you might be interested in the open source Scrabble3D.

If you’d like to share files between devices then you could connect them to the same network, but this can be tricky to set up, especially with devices of different types.

Lenovo’s SHAREit is a simpler solution which enables PCs, iOS, Android and Windows Phone users to share files locally over Wi-Fi, no network hassles involved at all.

Site Monitoring is a Java-based tool which provides various ways to monitor websites and their content.

Launch the program and it opens a page in your default browser. The interface is a little basic, but conveniently it comes with a couple of example site checks to help you figure out how everything works.

Google has released an iOS version of its Chrome Remote Desktop extension.

The new release means you can now remotely access and control your computers from PCs, Macs, Linux, iOS and Android devices, even Chromebooks.

Utilities developer NirSoft has announced the release of ExecutedProgramsList, a portable PC forensics tool which lists programs and batch files previously launched on a PC.

For every program, ExecutedProgramsList displays the .exe file name, product name, version, description, and -- sometimes -- when it was last executed.

The HOSTS file is an important element in most networks, a simple structure which maps host names to custom IP addresses.

HOSTS can be used to block ads, or prevent access to certain sites. It’s occasionally used by viruses to redirect web access from legitimate sites to somewhere more malicious. Windows doesn’t make it easy to view or control any of this, but fortunately the free BlueLife Hosts Editor provides just about everything you’ll need.

If your PC won’t start then you might try to recover the situation by booting from some other recovery environment: your Windows DVD, an antivirus disc, backup tool, whatever it might be.

If you can’t find that disc -- or maybe your computer doesn’t have a working disc drive -- then you can alternatively boot from an ISO image held on another computer, with a little help from AOMEI’s new PXE Boot Free.

Set up an email, web or FTP account in any internet software and it’ll probably store your login details, ensuring you won’t have to remember them in future.

You’ll still need your user name and password at some point, though, if only to reinstall your software or enter your details elsewhere.

Keeping your Windows software up-to-date is almost always a good idea, bringing new features, perhaps improving security and fixing bugs.

The benefits of updating your device drivers aren’t quite as clear-cut: it may be worthwhile, but if the new driver is buggy -- or you just make a mistake during the update process -- then you could seriously mess up your PC. It can still be worth checking for updates, though, especially if you’re currently having any hardware-related problems, and DriveTheLife is a free tool which automates the process for you.