Plane9 is a fun music visualizer and screensaver
Most big-name audio players come with a few visualizations to liven up playback. Right-click inside Windows Media Player, click Visualizations, and you can have it display swirling clouds, spectrum-type bars, psychedelic ripples and space flight effects, amongst others.
These aren’t always great quality, though. There may not be much choice, and smaller audio players often don’t have a visualizer at all. But if you like the core idea, you can always improve the situation by installing the free Plane9.
Grabilla 1.23 adds scrolling window captures
All-in-one free screengrab tool Grabilla has been updated to version 1.23 with the ability to capture scrolling windows.
This is ideal if you need to capture a long web page or other document. There’s no need to take and edit multiple grabs, as the program should handle everything for you.
EaseUS Todo PC Trans adds support for non-direct transfer of data and apps
EaseUS has released EaseUS Todo PCTrans 8.0 Free, an updated version of its PC transfer software for migrating data and applications to a new computer.
The new build no longer requires users to transfer directly between two active PCs on the same network. Instead, the program follows more established tools like Laplink in allowing users to save their data to an image file, which allows them to migrate in their own time, or install a new version of Windows on the same PC before transferring back their data and apps.
epCheck: track your favourite TV shows from the Windows desktop
The easiest way to track your favorite TV shows is usually to download a suitable app, or maybe sign up at a website. There are a huge number of options, and the only real challenge is finding out which one is best for you.
But what if you’d like a solution that works offline? One that doesn’t involve opening yet another account somewhere, and runs happily on the Windows desktop? Then you need to check out epCheck.
FileOptimizer 7.0 beta adds lossless FLAC compression
Javier Gutiérrez Chamorro has released the first public beta of his one-stop lossless compression tool, FileOptimizer 7.0.
The major new feature is support for optimizing FLAC files. Our first tests suggest this is going to take a long time (minutes per file) and achieve maybe 2 or 3 percent savings, but it’s still a welcome addition to the package.
ChrisPC Free Anonymous Proxy adds more proxies, improves speeds
ChrisPC has released the latest edition of its free-for-personal-use online privacy tool, ChrisPC Free Anonymous Proxy 5.50.
The upgrade seems to have concentrated on the fundamentals, now extending the anonymous proxy list to 1,000+ from more than 50 countries.
Opera Beta 25 arrives, finally adds full bookmark support, debuts Linux build
Opera has released Opera Beta 25, which sees the Opera Next channel renamed as part of what could be a landmark release for the alternative web browser when it hits final release next month. The headline new feature is the overdue implementation of bookmarks into the browser.
It’s also joined by the first Linux beta build since Opera relaunched last year, plus offers a redesigned Start page, integrated PDF viewer and support for web notifications direct from the Windows or Mac desktop.
Andy runs Android on your Mac, Windows 7 and 8 desktop
Almost three years on from its first release, BlueStacks is probably still the easiest way to run Android apps on your Windows desktop. But it also has issues: performance can be a problem, and you don’t get full control over your virtual device.
Andy is a new contender which takes a different approach, running an Android image with VirtualBox. It can be much more awkward to configure, but performance is great, and every aspect of the system can be tweaked to suit your needs.
RichEdit is a surprising WordPad replacement
If you need a free editor for Windows then checking out a few Notepad replacements is a good place to start: EverEdit, TotalEdit Professional, FXiTE are just a few we’ve covered in the past.
But if plain text editing isn’t enough then you might be interested in RichEdit, a portable WordPad replacement which supports both plain and rich text files.
View, edit and manage RAW images with Photo Browser
RAW image formats may have been around for a very long time (Adobe’s DNG is 10 years old this month), but they’re still not widely supported. Most graphics software handles one or two file types at best, or ignores them entirely.
Photo Browser is a little more ambitious. Once a commercial product, now freeware, this capable image viewer supports the popular RAW file types DNG, CRW, CR2, RAW, NEF, PEF, RAF, SRF, SR2 and ARW files, as well as the usual JPG/ GIF/ PNG/ TIFF and others.
Open Broadcaster Software shares your desktop with the world
You’ve taken some great new photos, finished your best-ever presentation, achieved total mastery of some major game -- whatever the reason, it’s now time to share your talents with the world.
If your needs are simple then you could take a few screenshots. Run a screen capture tool. Send a few emails. And maybe that’ll be enough.
OutlookStatView delivers detailed reports on your Outlook accounts
Use Outlook for a while and it’s all too easy to let the messages pile up. Soon your inbox is a bloated mess, too large to tackle easily, and so you just try to ignore everything older than the last week or so.
NirSoft’s OutlookStatView helps out by drilling down into your accounts and producing some detailed reports. Who’s sending you the most emails? The bulkiest attachments? How many messages are you handling each hour, day, week, month, year? It’s all just a click or two away.
VirtualBox fixes startup problems with Windows hosts, squashes more bugs
Oracle has released VirtualBox 4.3.16, the latest in a series of maintenance fixes for its cross-platform, part-open-source virtualization program.
The most notable fix in the new build affected a number of Windows hosts, which found themselves unable to open VMs. The only workaround had been to revert to the previous build (4.3.12).
AVG AntiVirus Free 2015 debuts zero-day protection, redesigned user interface
AVG Technologies has updated its entire range of PC products, launching AVG AntiVirus Free 2015, AVG AntiVirus 2015, AVG Internet Security 2015 and AVG PC TuneUp 2015.
After the relatively major changes introduced in the 2014 versions, this year’s updates are restricted to a redesigned user interface and new Outbreak Detection feature, which helps block zero-day malware exploits.
Run and test batch files with Shell Runner
Running a batch file in Windows can be as easy as a double-click, and if the script is simple then the command window might open, run your file and disappear again in a fraction of a second.
Of course, if your script has a problem then this might be an issue, as error messages will pop up and vanish before you have time to notice anything at all.
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