The standard Windows Search tool has improved a great deal in recent years, and the latest Windows 8.1 additions -- especially its Bing integration -- are another welcome step forward.

The technology still won't be enough for everyone, though. And so if you're looking for a more configurable, desktop search tool, you might like to try the free Pretty Run.

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Sonico GmbH has launched a Windows App version of its translation software with the release of iTranslate 1.1 for Windows RT and 8. The app follows the recent release of iTranslate Voice 2 on the iPad and iPhone.

As the name implies, iTranslate doesn't come with any support for translating phrases spoken into the microphone; instead users, must type their word or phrase into the box, and then wait for the app to translate it.

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Express Points 1.04 is the latest release from Australian developer NCH Software, a lightweight free presentation tool for Windows and Mac.

We really do mean "lightweight", too. Both installers packages are around 1MB in size, and they don’t download anything else: a full installation is barely 4MB in size.

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Converting a printed document to PDF can sometimes be a complicated process, where you must import the pages into a graphics tool, clean them up, then pass the results on to something else to generate the final document.

It doesn’t have to be that way, though. Creating PDFs from scanned images can be quick and easy, and it certainly doesn’t require heavyweight applications: a tiny portable tool could provide everything you need.

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Piriform Software has released Recuva 1.51 and Recuva Portable 1.51, new versions of its popular Windows freeware data-recovery tool.

Version 1.51 widens its file system support to cover Linux-formatted volumes, plus makes it possible to recover data from drives with no partition table data. It also includes numerous improvements and optimizations.

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Thumbnail me is an open source Windows and Linux tool which extracts frames from a video, then presents them as a single image, a quick and easy way to preview the movie’s contents.

The program imports most common video types: AVI, MP4, MPG, VOB, MOV, MKV, TS/ M2TS, FLV, 3GP, OGG, SWF and more.

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Paramount Software has updated Macrium Reflect to 5.2.6504, and despite the very minor-sounding version number, it actually includes several important changes.

The company claims that backup performance has been improved by an impressive 30 percent or more.

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Non-profit organization The Blender Foundation has released Blender 2.70, a major new release of its cross-platform, open-source 3D graphics tool. Version 2.70, also available in 64-bit and portableform on Windows, adds new features and begins a revamp of its user interface.

There’s initial support for volumetrics in Cycles, plus faster rendering of hair and textures. Also improved are the Motion Tracker, mesh modelling and game engine tools.

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Cyotek WebCopy is a clever tool which copies all or part of a website to your hard drive for offline browsing.

Grabbing a small and simple site is easy: just enter a URL in the "Website" box, and choose the Copy option. Cyotek WebCopy downloads that page, and any links (within the same domain), then repeats the process until it’s done. And then you’re able to view the local copy of any page, and browse it as though you were online.

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jPDF Tweak is an open source Java Swing application which provides a host of ways to customize, adjust and work with PDF files.

You can split or combine documents, for instance. There are crop, rotate and scaling options. Or you can apply text or image watermarks.

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From forum avatars to simple web slideshows, there’s still a place for animated GIFs. And, fortunately, they can be very easy to create. Cyotek Gif Animator provides everything you need to create, work and batch process your GIF animations.

Open an existing animation and it’s displayed in a simple vertical timeline. You can change its background color, add or edit a text comment, and decide whether (and how often) it should loop, before viewing any results in a Preview window.

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Pixopedia doesn’t initially look like the most powerful of graphics tools. Small flat buttons present various ugly and cryptic icons; even the more obvious ones don’t behave as you’d expect; and there’s no bundled Help file to consult, not even any obvious menus you might browse for clues.

Don’t be tempted to give up, though. The program is quirky in the extreme, but once you’ve learned a few basic tricks then life becomes much easier.

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Install most screen capture tools and you’ll find they run almost entirely in the background. Often you can simply press a hotkey and have your image saved, printed, uploaded to Facebook and so on, without you having to do anything else at all.

What if you just want to capture something for almost immediate reference, though: an address and phone number, a map, directions, something you want to keep in view? Saving an image means you’ll have to find and reopen it, and so you might prefer the rather simpler SnipDock.

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BillP Studios has updated its snapshot-based security tool for Windows with the release of WinPatrol 30.5.2014. The new incremental release comes with two major new features, plus an upgrade discount for XP users as End of Life approaches.

Version 2014 also continues to tweak the positioning of dialog boxes and their components in response to user feedback, and has switched font to MS Shell Dig.

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ClamWin is an easy-to-use open source antivirus tool which runs on every version of Windows from 98 upwards.

The program doesn’t offer any real-time protection, unfortunately, which is a significant weakness. But you can add this yourself, to a degree, just by installing Clam Sentinel.

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