Technize.NET

System Mechanic: Powerful Performance Optimization Software For Windows

Usman Khurshid — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:30:05 +0000

Windows is a great Operating System but its performance deteriorates with the usage and passage of time. To understand why Windows starts performing slowly, we will need to understand the working of Windows. Windows makes use of files and registry in order to operate. The registry is the database where all information regarding Windows and software is stored. Let’s take a look at how Windows loses performance by the passage of time.

Windows makes excessive use of temporary files. Frequent file operations result in file fragmentation and clutter. With file fragmentation, more time is needed to access and read a file. As the temporary files storage becomes larger and larger, the system drive gets a performance hit.

The second most commonly faced problem is of Registry corruption and fragmentation. As Registry is the main driving force behind Windows, corruption in Registry will result in hugely degraded system with frequent crashes.

Windows starts some services and processes when it boots. These services can be from Microsoft by default and also can be added by third party software. These services and processes can also slow down the PC if a lot of unnecessary items are added to Windows startup.

Unfortunately Microsoft does not offer any kind of services to boost the performance of Windows again. There are a lot of third party tools which have been created for this purpose. There are a lot of free and paid tools but they should be used with care as some of them can destroy your Windows installation. My favorite tool for optimizing Windows has been Toolwiz Care. You can also use TuneUp Utilities 2011 for free and Advanced SystemCare for the purpose of PC optimization.

All of the above mentioned tools are really very good but they are not the best. They offer a lot of optimization and cleanup services but no one is the perfect one. If you are thinking of the perfect system optimization and automated care solution, System Mechanic from iolo is the only solution that comes in mind.

System Mechanic has been in business since the early days of Windows XP and seems to come up with the most powerful performance optimization solution for Windows. In my opinion, it has got all the nuts and bolts for keeping the system in good shape.

When you start System Mechanic, the dashboard overview will show you the current system analysis report in a graphical format which makes it a lot easier for us to see if the overall performance of Windows is up to the mark or not. There are three meters, one for health, one for security and one for overall performance. System Mechanic also provides a gadget in Windows 7 which shows the same performance meters on the Desktop.

The graphical user interface of System Mechanic is quite soothing to the eye and employs a Windows Explorer like approach. It lists down important tasks in the left hand pane while the right hand pane the selected task and corresponding options and suggestions.

Automated Tasks is where iolo System Mechanic takes the lead from all other optimization software. Selecting ‘Automated Tasks’ from the left pane will show all the automated tasks supported by System Mechanic. You have to option to enable as many tasks as per your convenience.

System Mechanic can also monitor the anti-malware and firewall software currently installed in the PC and makes sure that both of them are enabled and up to date.

If you don’t have much time and want a one click solution to all your PC problems, System Mechanic provides one for you. You will need to select All in one tools under Toolbox which will list down all the one click solutions available in categories. The best all in one tool is Total Registry Revitalizer. It is the most safe way of cleaning, optimizing and fragmenting Windows Registry. You can also use individual tools if you want a specific solution.

I just love the IntelliStatus reports part of System Mechanic. IntelliStatus reports list down the current status report of all the components which are essential to PC performance for example, hard drive space, system memory, startup items, running programs and Internet speed. You can optimize each one of these just by clicking the Optimize button.

One of the most important features that most of the other optimization software lack is to roll-back the changes made by the software if anything goes wrong. Most of the software make use of Windows Restore functionality which can be a problem because it will restore all the Windows settings in addition to the changes made by the software.

System Mechanic takes a better approach in this regard and includes SafetyNet to review or roll-back changes to the system made by System Mechanic. You can revert or roll-back each change without affecting the whole system.

Overall, System Mechanic is a gem to have in the PC. If you want a truly performance optimized PC, do consider System Mechanic as the only optimization software for all your needs.

Download System Mechanic

Hide Files Inside Images With Veneer File Masking Software

Usman Khurshid — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:44:45 +0000

There are several techniques of hiding sensitive and important files from unauthorized access. One of the most popular method is to encrypt files with a third party encrypting software like TrueCtypt. I have reviewed 14 file and folder encryption software which can be used to password protect or hide files from unauthorized access. If you are using Windows and don’t want to use any third party software for encrypting files and folders, you can also encrypt or decrypt files and folders in Windows 7.

You can also make the file as hidden from File attributes but this can be easily undone by anyone who knows how to unhide files in Windows. Another interesting way of protecting your sensitive files is to hide those files inside the images. Yes! you can hide your files inside images. The only visible difference between the image before hiding the file and after hiding the file inside the image is the size of the image. The size of the image will increase but otherwise there will be no difference in the image. The image will open as it used to open before. No one will know that there is a file hidden inside the image.

Veneer is a free and open source file masking software which lets the user to hide a file inside an image. It also lets the user unhide the file from the image as well. Veneer comes with a bulky graphical user interface. The publisher of the software certainly needs to cleanup the white space and make the main window compact (like I have done it in the image above).

Apart from the user interface, Veneer is pretty easy to use and uses a step by step approach to get the work done. There are a total of 4 steps for hiding the file inside an image. You will need to select “Bind File” from the menu for hiding process.

Enter the image path where you want to hide the file and hit the proceed button.
Enter the file path which you want to hide and hit the proceed button.
Step 3 is automated and will bind the image with the file.
Step 4 will show the link to the image which has been created as a result of this binding process.

You will be able to open the image as normal but you will see a difference in the size of the image which means that the file is successfully been hidden inside the image file.

Unbinding is the process to unhide the hidden file inside the image. This process is also very easy and uses only three steps.

Select the encrypted or binded image file
Step 2 is an automated unbinding process
Process completed will separate the actual file and the image.

Apart from binding and unbinding, Veneer provides a very useful function of searching for binded files. You will need to give the search location under Search preferences.

Overall Veneer is a great portable software useful for many people who do not want very high amount of protection to their files and just want to hide the files from common eye.

Download Veneer

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Windows Error Lookup Tool: What Those Error Messages And Codes Mean?

Usman Khurshid — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:15:40 +0000

Windows generates quite a lot of errors and gives a corresponding codes to each type of error. Some of the errors pertain to installed applications while others are system errors, warnings and information messages. Generally if we look at the event viewer, we will find some information about the errors that Windows is encountering during its run time but if we want to analyze the errors closely, we will not find much information about the error messages but instead Windows will give us an error code which we can use to find what type of problems we are having.

To lookup more details about the error code, we usually go to Google.com and search for the error code. Sometimes we get the results pretty quickly otherwise we have to search for hours to get a proper answer.

Windows Error Lookup Tool (WELT) is a free and portable utility which can give information about Windows error codes. You just have to enter the error code and it will automatically give the corresponding information about the type of error that code is referring to. There is no need to be connected to the Internet in order to get the code information. More than 6000 error codes are supported by Windows Error Lookup Tool. Here is the distribution of the error codes:

Win32: 2,527
NTSTATUS: 1,730
HRESULT: 1,767
STOP: 318

Windows Error Lookup Tool supports decimal as well as hexadecimal values to be entered as error code. If you are encountering a blue screen of death, you can easily enter the hexadecimal value in WELT in order to get more information about the type of error you are getting.

Although Windows Error Lookup Tool only display the information about the error code and does not provide further actions to be taken to solve the corresponding problem, it is certainly a handy tool especially for System Administrators who can take it in a USB drive and use it anywhere especially when the Internet is not available for troubleshooting.

Download Windows Error Lookup Tool

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Upgrade From Windows 7 To Windows 8 In $14.99

Usman Khurshid — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:01:12 +0000

The download of Windows 8 Consumer Preview was made available on 29th February 2012. Since this is a beta product, it can be used free of charge for a period of about one year. Windows 8 Consumer Preview will expire on 15th January 2013. So you can use Windows 8 CP for one year for free. After that, people will need to purchase Windows 8 because Windows 8 final would have been released by then. There is no word from Microsoft about how much Windows 8 will cost. There are four editions of Windows 8 which will cost differently.

According to Cnet, the people who purchase Windows 7 PCs during this summer will get special coupons which will allow them to upgrade to Windows 8 for just $14.99. Others will need to purchase Windows 8 on a much bigger price tag. Here’s the screenshot shared by Cnet:

If you plan to purchase Windows 7 Home Basic or higher during this summer, be sure that you will be able to get a Windows 8 Pro license just for $14.99. This offer will start with the release of Windows 8 Release Preview and last until January 2013 when the beta expires.

In addition to Windows 8 upgrade offer, Microsoft will also provide upgrade packs providing Windows 8 Pro and Media Center capabilities. According to Winsupersite:

In addition to this PC upgrade offer, Microsoft will also provide in-the-box upgrades to Windows 8 users in the form of upgrade “packs” that provide Windows 8 Pro and Windows Media Center capabilities. These upgrade packs replace the old Windows Anywhere Upgrade system and will be available through a new interface called Add Features to Windows 8. No word yet on the upgrade cost for these packs.

Although this news hasn’t been confirmed but hopefully will be confirmed with more details from Microsoft and will come as a good news to new PC owners with Windows 7 PC.

Download Silverlight 5.1 Offline Installer Setup

Usman Khurshid — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:44:09 +0000

Microsoft has just released a new version of Silverlight 5. The latest version becomes Silverlight 5.1.10411.0. For those who don’t know what Silverlight is, Microsoft Silverlight is a direct competitor to Adobe Flash and Adobe Air and can be used to create web graphics and animations. While Silverlight is not as popular as Flash, it is always a good idea to download and install all the tools that help us in viewing and interacting with the content produced in these technologies.

The following issues have been fixed in the latest release of Silverlight 5.1:

Fixes Security issue described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
2636927 MS12-034: Description of the security update for Microsoft Silverlight: May 8, 2012

Fixes an issue where “Best Effort” Silverlight Digital Rights Management Output Protection levels failed on some machines.
Fixed a failure to update OOB applications that are configured to use elevated trust when in browser.
Fixes an issue where persistent license acquisition would fail when a customer upgrades from Silverlight 4 to Silverlight 5.
Fixes an issue where certain character combinations can cause Silverlight application to crash.
Fixes an Access Violation described in the following Connect issue https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/719572
Fixes an issue where the SL5 plugin displays blank window after installing a font with a font name that starts with “&”.
Fixes an issue where moving a focus to TextBox or RichTextBox after moving a focus to ItemsControl causes IME to be disabled.
Fixes an issue where Silverlight would not play content which required Output Protection.
Fixes a Silverlight DRM issue where some customers encounter hardware ID mismatch errors which can only be resolved by re-individualization.

If you want to see which version of Silverlight is installed on your computer, you can type ‘silverlight’ in Start Menu search and select Silverlight configuration utility. You can also update Silverlight from the configuration utility. Just open the ‘Updates’ tab and select “Install Updates automatically”. Otherwise you can also download the latest version of Silverlight 5.1 from the link below.

Download Silverlight 5.1 (Offline Installers)

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Alt – Tab Keyboard Shortcut Alternative For Windows

Usman Khurshid — Tue, 15 May 2012 01:52:02 +0000

If you are a shortcut lover and use a lot of shortcuts while using Windows, you must be familiar with the popular Alt – Tab keyboard shortcut which is used to switch between open windows and applications. The open apps and windows usually show up in the task bar but one has to take the mouse cursor on top of the window icon that needs to be maximized or restored and then click on the icon in order to open the window. This takes more time as compared to pressing Alt – Tab from the keyboard. Alt – Tab lets the user cycle through all the open windows. This is a sequential process. You can press Alt – Shift – Tab in order to cycle backwards.

Windows 7 comes with another keyboard shortcut for the same purpose, WinKey – Tab. This shortcut will visualize the open windows and apps in a 3D form which makes it easier for the user to see the actual contents of the window.

But there is a problem with these two keyboard shortcuts that Windows provides, both the shortcuts provide a sequential way to cycling through the open windows. If you have many windows open, you will find it easier to use the mouse instead of the keyboard.

To fix this problem, there have been many alternatives to the default Alt – Tab keyboard shortcut functionality. VistaSwitcher is one of the better alternative which makes use of a visually appealing design combining Alt – Tab and WinKey – Tab functionality. It can replace the default Alt – Tab function so that it will always open the switching windows when Alt – Tab is pressed.

VistaSwitcher lists down all the open windows with their titles on the right hand pane while the left hand pane displays the preview of the selected window. You can also use the mouse to select the desired window from VistaSwitcher.

Upon installation, VistaSwitcher will ask you if you want it to run on Windows startup so that it permanently replaces the default Windows functionality. After the first configuration, it is more like a set it and forget it software. There is no need for further configuration. It will just keep on sitting in the system try and do its work seamlessly.

Concluding, VistaSwitcher is a better alternative to the default Windows Alt – Tab and WinKey – Tab functionalities which can make the users job easier if there are a lot of windows open. What are your thoughts about this software?

Download VistaSwitcher

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Download And Install 300+ Games From The Internet

Usman Khurshid — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:50:46 +0000

Gaming has become an integral part of our digital lives. Everyone, whether young or old, who is using a computer also plays his favorite games on the computer. There are dedicated gaming stations like XBox and Sony PlayStation but here we are talking about games on the PC. If you are a game lover and like to play a lot of games on your PC, the software that I’m going to talk about is just for you.

Tiggit is an open source and free game launcher and installer which can also download new games from the Internet. Right now Tiggit only contains Indie games. Most of the games are free while others include demos. Indie games are independent video games created by individuals or small teams without any financial support. Some of the most popular Indie games include Minecraft, World of Goo and Braid.

Tiggit comes with a very simple interface. The main interface is divided into three columns and four tabs. The first column will list down all the categories or games. If you want to play a game from a specific category, just click on the category and the second column will update to list all the games related to that category. For example, if I want to play a multi-player game, I’ll just click the multi-player category and I’ll be presented with all games which can be played in a multi-player environment.

After selecting the category, you’ll need to select the game which you want to play from the second column. You will get an Install button in the third and right most column. You can click on the Install button and Tiggit will automatically download the game and install it in the computer.

If you look at the main interface of Tiggit, you will notice that there are four tabs at the top of the window.

Freeware
Demos
Installed
Latest News

Each tab is pretty self explanatory. Freeware tab will contain all the game that are free to install and play. The demos tab contains all the paid Indie games which have playable demos. There is no way to buy the actual games from inside Tiggit. Installed tab will list all the installed games. You can start playing installed games by selecting them from the Installed tab. You can see from the tabs that Tiggit currently supports 300+ free games and 30+ demos of the games.

One thing should be noted that if you are using Windows 7 or Windows Vista, it is recommended to install Tiggit on a drive other than the system drive (C: Drive) because if you are using UAC, Tiggit will not be able to install the downloaded games inside the Program Files folder due to system restrictions.

The good thing about Tiggit is that it can auto-update itself so that you will always get the latest and fresh list of games included in Tiggit. You can see the list of games included in Tiggit here.

My conclusion after playing games from Tiggit is that it is the free game launcher and installer that every game lover should have. What do you think about this nifty game downloader, installer and launcher?

Download Tiggit game installer and launcher

Block Internet Access To Specific Programs In Windows

Usman Khurshid — Sun, 13 May 2012 19:20:36 +0000

Windows comes with a good firewall which can be useful for blocking a lot of basic hacking attacks. The built-in Windows Firewall was first introduced with Windows XP and then improved its way to Windows 7. Windows 7 Firewall is an advanced version of Windows Firewall. By default, Windows Firewall will block all the unknown programs to access the Internet. It will always ask the user for permission to allow the program to access the Internet. You can set different advanced rules for any scenario.

If you want to block Internet access to a specific program, you will need to go advanced. It becomes a bit technical and complex to block custom programs in Windows 7 Firewall. To block Internet access to a program in Windows 7, go to Control Panel –> System and Security –> Windows Firewall –> Allowed Programs. You will need to remove the program from the list so that it does not have access to the Internet. There is not much you can do with the functionality of Windows Firewall.

Firewall App Blocker is a portable program that can extend the functionality of Windows Firewall and allow you to block specific programs to access the Internet instead of the default behavior of allowing programs in Windows Firewall. Firewall App Blocker comes with a very simple interface which even a newbie can also operate. When you open Firewall App Blocker for the first time in Windows 7, it will give a UAC warning which you have to say yes to. The main interface of Firewall App Blocker has four buttons in which only two buttons have to be used for the actual functioning of the software.

The Add button will open up file selection dialog box from where you can browse the desired executable which you want to block access to the Internet. The Delete button will remove the selected program from the block list. The Advanced button will open Microsoft Management Console for Windows Firewall. This MMC is an advanced function of Windows Firewall from which you can setup different policies for the Firewall. The About button will give you information about Firewall App Blocker.

Behind the scenes, Firewall App Blocker makes use of the following registry key to add the programs to the Windows Firewall block list:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\services\\SharedAccess\\Parameters\\FirewallPolicy\\FirewallRules

If you have advanced knowledge of how to work with Windows registry, you can make your own Firewall rules using the above registry key.

In my opinion Firewall App Blocker is a handy program to have if you work frequently with Windows Firewall. It makes difficult tasks of blocking internet access to specific programs in Windows a lot easier and straight forward.

Download Firewall App Blocker

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Edit Large Text Files With PilotEdit Lite (4GB+ Files)

Usman Khurshid — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:01:42 +0000

There is a large no. of free text file editors for Windows and they come in several varieties. Some are geared towards simple text editing while others are meant for more complex tasks like programming language editing etc. Windows also includes two text file editors by default, Notepad and Wordpad. Notepad is meant to be a very simple text editor while Wordpad has formatting options. But both of them can’t handle large text files. If a text file is a few Megabytes in size, neither Notepad nor Wordpad will be able to open the file.

My favorite text file editor is Notepad++ and I also use Notepad2 for some of the programming tasks. But when it comes to creating or editing huge text files, almost all the text editors fail at one point or the other. Notepad++ does a good job of editing files up to 2GB. However, PilotEdit Lite is another free and advanced text editor which can even edit large text files with file sizes ranging from 4GB to an unlimited file size. Some of the features of PilotEdit Lite include the following:

Edit files larger than 4GB.
Download/upload files larger than 4GB through FTP.
Encrypt/decrypt files larger than 4GB.
Compare files larger than 4GB.
Automatically detect and adjust file encoding.
Input, delete, cut, copy and paste in HEX mode.
You may undo/redo even after you switch between text mode and HEX mode.
Multiple line find and replace.
Compare directories.
Word wrap is fast even when you are editing a huge file.
File/replace a string in multiple directories.

I think PilotEdit is an ideal text editor for editing files through FTP especially the log files which tend to be of very large sizes.

PilotEdit Lite works on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Operating Systems.

Download PilotEdit Lite

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Download Adobe CS6 Offline Installers (Free Trials)

Usman Khurshid — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:29:53 +0000

Adobe Creative Suite 6 (CS6) final has recently been released. The creative suite is a collection of software that are related to web, design, video and photography. Adobe offers 30 day trial of each of its software including Adobe CS6. Just after the release announcement, direct download links to the setup installers of Adobe CS6 along with the download links to individual programs were leaked but they only worked for a few hours and then were blocked by Adobe.

In this article I will explain how to download Adobe CS6 trial along with the individual programs for offline installation. Adobe Creative Suite CS6 contains the following individual products:

Photoshop
Illustrator
InDesign
InCopy
Fireworks
DreamWeaver
Flash Professional
Premier
After Effects
Audition

There are some direct download links that are working. You can download each program by clicking on the link and the download will start immediately.

Download Complete suites

Adobe CS6 Design Premium Edition
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/MDIA/CS6/win32/DesignPremium_CS6_LS16.7z
Mac OSX:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/MDIA/CS6/osx10/DesignPremium_CS6_LS16.dmg

Adobe CS6 Design Standard Edition
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/DSGN/CS6/win32/DesignStandard_CS6_LS16.7z
Mac OSX:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/DSGN/CS6/osx10/DesignStandard_CS6_LS16.dmg

Adobe CS6 Web Premium Edition
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/WEBB/CS6/win32/WebPremium_CS6_LS16.7z
Mac OS X:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/WEBB/CS6/osx10/WebPremium_CS6_LS16.dmg

Adobe CS6 Production Premium Edition
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/STVD/CS6/win32/ProductionPremium_CS6_LS16.7z
Mac OSX:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/STVD/CS6/osx10/ProductionPremium_CS6_LS16.dmg

Download individual apps

Photoshop CS6
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/PHSP/13/win32/Photoshop_13_LS16.7z
Mac OSX:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/PHSP/13/osx10/Photoshop_13_LS16.dmg

Illustrator CS6
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/ILST/16/win32/Illustrator_16_LS16.7z
Mac OSX:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/ILST/16/osx10/Illustrator_16_LS16.dmg

InDesign CS6
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/IDSN/8/win32/InDesign_8_LS16.7z
Mac OSX:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/IDSN/8/osx10/InDesign_8_LS16.dmg

InCopy CS6
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/AICY/8/win32/InCopy_8_LS16.7z
Mac OSX:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/AICY/8/osx10/InCopy_8_LS16.dmg

Fireworks CS6
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/FWKS/12/win32/Fireworks_12_LS16.exe
Mac OSX:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/FWKS/12/osx10/Fireworks_12_LS16.dmg

Dreamweaver CS6
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/DRWV/12/win32/Dreamweaver_12_LS16.exe
Mac OSX:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/DRWV/12/osx10/Dreamweaver_12_LS16.dmg

Flash Professional CS6
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/FLPR/12/win32/FlashPro_12_LS16.exe
Mac OSX:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/FLPR/12/osx10/FlashPro_12_LS16.dmg

Premiere CS6
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/PPRO/6/win32/PremierePro_6_LS7.7z
Mac OS X:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/PPRO/6/osx10/PremierePro_6_LS7.dmg

After Effects CS6
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/AEFT/11/win64/AfterEffects_11_LS7.7z
Mac OSX:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/AEFT/11/osx10-64/AfterEffects_11_LS7.dmg

Audition CS6
Windows:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/AUDT/5/win32/Audition_5_LS7.exe

Mac OSX:
http://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/AUDT/5/osx10/Audition_5_LS7.dmg

I have not been able to find the working direct download links for Adobe CS6 Master collection. You can download Adobe CS6 master collection using the following method:

Update: niklasR has finally found the direct download link for Adobe CS6 master collection. Here is the download link:

https://trials2.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/STAM/CS6/win32/MasterCollection_CS6_LS16.7z

Download Adobe download assistant from the following link:
Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
Run the downloaded setup and login to your Adobe account. If you don’t have an Adobe account yet, you can create an account directly from the same screen and then login to start the download process.
Clicking on CS6 Master Collection will download all the apps to your computer.

Skype 5.9 for Windows Updated to Version 5.9.0.115

Usman Khurshid — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:56:03 +0000

Skype has just released a new hotfix for Skype 5.9 which addresses only one issue which was faced by some users. The users were not able to login to Skype and this was happening only on specific user profiles. Skype 5.9.0.115 fixes this issue. You can download Skype 5.9.115 from the location below.

The actual release announcement has been made on Skype blog. If you are active in the Skype community, you will see quite a few users complaining about this issue. There has also been a manual fix to this problem. For example if you go to this thread complaining about the strange login issues, the user writes:

After upgrading to 5.9 I cannot login (ONLY) into my skype profile in windows. I can login into skype with other accounts (brother logins ok). The laptop runs on WinXP Pro. I have uninstalled-installed 2-3 times the newest version and the previous version. Skype login in Linux (same laptop) and Android phone runs ok. Tried in desktop (WinXP Home) same problem.

And here’s the manual fix suggested by g4pilut:

Hold the Windows key and type r. Type %appdatat%\Skype . Rename the folder with your Skype name to something like \MySkypeName_old.
Restart Skype and see if you can signin to your account.

But now you can install the new version of Skype 5.9.0.115 which already contains the hotfix for this problem.

Download Skype 5.9.0.115 offline installer

Please note that I have just given the above thread conversation as an example only as I think this could be a problem fixed in the new version of Skype but I’m not sure about it. You can share your experiences in the comments below.

Download McAfee Antivirus Plus 2012 With Free License

Usman Khurshid — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:23:59 +0000

McAfee is giving away six months free license of McAfee Antivirus Plus 2012. You can now download McAfee Antivirus Plus 2012 and use it for free for at least 6 months. McAfee is an old player in the antivirus market. Once upon a time, the only competitors in the security industry were Norton and McAfee but both have been left behind by so many other competitors.

Last time we talked about Facebook offering 6 months free subscriptions of 5 popular Antivirus software including Norton and McAfee Internet Security. That offer is still valid and if you want to get a 6 months free license of McAfee Internet Security, you can get it from there. There is another promotion from McAfee in which they are giving away free licenses of McAfee Antivirus Plus 2012.

Before actually getting McAfee Antivirus Plus 2012 free license, lets first see what are the features of this antivirus:

Anti-virus, Anti-spyware, and Anti-malware
Real-time Safeguards with McAfee Active Protection to look at suspicious material and keep the computer secure.
Two-way Firewall which is better than the Windows built-in one-way Firewall.
Safe browsing module which gives color coded safety advice of the web page being opened.
Fast Start-Up and Scan Times
Digital Data Shredder to permanently delete data and prevent sensitive data from recovery.
PC Tune-up keeps the computer running at peak performance levels.
Anti-bot Protection to keep automated botnets from connecting your PC to Internet crime networks.
USB and Removable Drive Scan to keep your computer secure from USB viruses.
Pre-install Scan to install McAfee Antivirus Plus 2012 even on an infected computer.

Now lets see how we can get McAfee Antivirus Plus 2012 license for free. Just follow the steps below:

Go to McAfee Antivirus Plus 2012 free license giveaway page and click on “Get Started Now” button.
If you have not registered with McAfee account, you will be taken to the registration form where you can fill out the details and register with McAfee. You will also need to click on the account activation link which you will get in your email in order to download the antivirus software.
Once you have successfully created your account and logged in, you can easily get your McAfee Antivirus Plus 2012 free license from McAfee account page. Please note that this link will only work if you are logged into McAfee account.
Download McAfee Antivirus Plus 2012 by clicking the “Download” button.

I hope you’ll enjoy McAfee Antivirus Plus 2012 free for 6 months. In the mean while, we’ll find another deal for you so you get absolutely free antivirus protection for your PC all the time.

InfoAtoms: Instant Translation And Thesaurus Of Words Without Leaving Your Browser

Usman Khurshid — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:07:35 +0000

InfoAtoms is a new browser plugin which can be used to get instant translation and thesaurus of a selected word in any browser without leaving the actual page. So you stay on the page and get instant information in a pop up. I think installing this addon is better than Google translate because in Google translate we have to open a new window to get the translation or translate the whole page while we need a simple word translation.

InfoAtoms comes as a plugin for almost all popular browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari. You don’t have to install a separate addon for each of these browsers. Just download the setup file from below and run the setup. It will ask you to install the addon in all these browsers if they are installed on your system.

After installation, open a webpage and select any text on the webpage. You will see a new button appear upon selecting the text.

Clicking on this button will open an in-page window which shows three tabs.

Research
Translate
Thesaurus

You can click on any of the tab to open the respective information. If you interested in translation of the selected text, there is a great feature of speaking the translation. This will give you a better idea of the translated word pronunciation.

The Research tab gives a neat search result from Wikipedia and a few search results from Bing. Clicking on any link within the InfoAtoms search results will open a new browser window or tab.

Overall, InfoAtoms is a software worth installing and using. It will help in being more productive and doing less effort researching for keywords.

Download InfoAtoms

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

PasswordG: Generate Secure And Complex Passwords In Windows

Usman Khurshid — Fri, 04 May 2012 23:30:03 +0000

PasswordG is a free software to generate unique, complex and highly secure passwords which can’t be easily cracked. There are many online password generator services available for free and also password management software which also offer random password generation.

PasswordG is unique in the sense that you can customize how the password is generated. The following factors can be configured in order to generate passwords using PasswordG:

Length of the password
Number of passwords to generate
Generate readable passwords
Allowed characters (Custom)
Add or remove pre-defined sets of allowed characters

Lowercase
Lowercase + Numbers
Uppercase
Uppercase + Numbers
Alphabetic
Alphanumeric
Alphanumeric + Special characters

When you generate the passwords after settings these factors, you will get the new passwords as a list along with bits and quality. The bits and quality determine the strength of the password. The higher the strength, the more secure it will be.

After you are satisfied with the generated passwords, you will be able to save the generated password in a text file from the File menu.

PasswordG also lets you check password strength of your pre-defined passwords. It will give you suggestions about the password strength and security.

Overall PasswordG is worth trying out. I like the feature of creating readable passwords so that we can remember the passwords if we have to.

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

I use KeePass for all my password management needs. You can also check out 5 free portable password managers.

WeTransfer: Send Large Files Up To 2 GB Via Email For Free

Usman Khurshid — Fri, 04 May 2012 23:04:54 +0000

WeTransfer is an online file transfer service which supports sending files up to 2GB. WeTransfer is the easiest file transfer service with easy to understand and use interface. The just has to drag and drop one or multiple files on WeTransfer site widget, enter your email address and the email addresses of people you want to share files with. You can send email up to 20 people. You can also type an optional message which will be common for everyone. Your own email address is needed because WeTransfer also lets you know when each one of the receiver has downloaded the files. This is a great feature, mostly a premium one available here for free.

Hitting the Transfer button will open the terms and conditions dialog box. You will need to agree to the terms and click OK. The transfer starts immediately after that.

Unfortunately there is no way to pause the transfer process. You will need to continuously upload the files and if there is an interruption in your Internet connection, the upload process will start again.

The files are stored on WeTransfer servers online for a period of 2 weeks. After that the files will be automatically deleted. I think 2 weeks period is enough for the receiving person to download all the files.

Visit WeTransfer

Transfer Big Files is a WeTransfer alternative which supports password protecting the files before sending. Transfer Big Files lets you send files of size up to 100 MB. The files will expire in 5 days. You can password protect the downloads and also get a notification when recipients have downloaded the files.

Which service do you use for sending large files via email?

Miro 5 Media Player With Integrated Youtube, Hulu and Torrent Downloads

Usman Khurshid — Fri, 04 May 2012 21:26:03 +0000

Miro is a free and open source media player with a lot of built-in features that can’t be found in any other media player. We have already reviewed other media players like KMPlayer and Media Player Classic but Miro take a non-traditional route by integrating online streaming services like Youtube and Hulu right within the player. So you don’t have to open the browsers to play a video from Youtube or watch a movie from Hulu. All of this will take place within Miro media player.

Let’s take a look at some of the features of Miro 5 which is the latest version of Miro Player.

Easy to use music library

Miro comes with an automatic music library feature which means that you just have to point Miro to the folders or files and all of them will appear in Miro. You can also switch from iTunes to Miro without changing anything.

Download and play videos

Now you can download and play videos from different streaming sites like Youtube, Hulu, Ted, PBS, YouTorrent, ClearBits. You can even download podcasts from popular sites.

Buy music within Miro

Now you can buy music from Amazon store, Google Android store and eMusic store right within Miro.

I was pretty comfortable with the interface of Miro Player but I will not replace the standard Windows Media Player with Miro because I’m pretty comfortable with it. But I will be using Miro for streaming videos from Youtube and downloading video torrents. What do you think about Miro Media Player? Share your thoughts in comments below.

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Note: We are hosting Miro Player on our servers because the setup file on Miro site comes with additional toolbars which are junk and useless in my opinion. The above setup download is clean and will only install Miro 5.0 media player.

Internet Explorer Still The King In Browser Wars

Usman Khurshid — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:22:48 +0000

While browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox have been following the rapid development model by releasing a new version of their browsers after ever 6 to 8 weeks. Opera has also been doing good and updating themselves with new features and bug fixes. The market share stats of this month have been amazing because Internet Explorer has not updated itself to a newer version for a while but still it has managed to steal some market share from the rest.

In the latest stats, Internet Explorer leads the browser wars with more than 54% of the market share which others lag too far behind. Please note that Internet Explorer was losing market share continuously for the last few months but now it has stepped up the accelerator and hence the increase in market share.

As far as other browsers are concerned, Firefox is the second most used browser with 20.2% share which is lower than the April values of 20.55%. So Firefox is constantly losing its share amid Firefox alternatives based on Firefox appearing on the surface.

Google Chrome is constantly gaining popularity, thanks to its sleek and fast design and a huge promotion by Google. Chrome’s market share has upped from 18.57% to 18.85%. Please note that the market share of Chrome was only 13.86% in June 2011.

Safari and Opera seem to be floating up and down with almost the same stats every month. Safari went down from 5.07% to 4.81% while Opera improved their market share from 1.62% to 1.63%.

What do you think of these browser stats? Which one is your favorite browser and why?

3 Firefox Alternatives That Are Based On Firefox

Usman Khurshid — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:48:00 +0000

Firefox is a very popular browser which is losing the market share of browsers nowadays. This is because of some bugs in Firefox which make browsers like Google Chrome seem like run faster than Firefox. Although the browser is highly customizable, the most touted problem with Firefox has been the memory leakage. If you are running the latest version of Firefox, I’m pretty sure that you will not encounter the memory leakage problem. But the speed of the browser is still a question mark.

Although Firefox is best for general browsing, there are specialized alternatives to Firefox that are based on Firefox. We will be discussing three of the Firefox alternatives that are based on Firefox.

Waterfox

Since Mozilla does not offer a 64-bit version of Firefox, Waterfox comes into being. Waterfox is the same browser as Firefox but with a 64-bit compatibility. All the 64-bit addons like Adobe Flash and Java can be installed in Waterfox. Waterfox seems to be even faster than the parent Firefox because it is compiled for a 64-bit system. If you install Waterfox and have already installed 32-bit versions of Flash, Java and Silverlight then you will need to download and install 64-bit Flash player.

Download Waterfox

Pale Moon

Pale Moon is another optimized browser which is based on Firefox code. According to the Pale Moon team, Mozilla does not offer an optimized Firefox browser for Windows. So they have stepped in with Pale Moon. Most of the features of Pale Moon is pretty much the same except that some features of Firefox have been stripped off like accessibility features and parental controls. If you do not use these features, then you should use Pale Moon instead of Firefox.

Download Pale Moon (Web installer)

Wyzo

Wyzo is another browser based on Firefox that is specialized for media and downloads. It comes with a built in bittorrent client for one click torrent download. It also includes multi-source download capabilities for faster downloading. Wyzo seems to have not been updated in a while because it’s still based on Firefox 3.6 which is obsolete now. So Wyzo should not replace the default Firefox installation in my opinion.

Download Wyzo

Which one of these browsers do you like? Will you use them as Firefox alternatives? Share your thoughts in comments below.

3 Free Tools To Password Protect PDF Files

Usman Khurshid — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:18:12 +0000

Portable Document Format (PDF) is the most widely used standard to share documents across the web and different platforms. The greatest feature of PDF file is that it looks the same across any platform and in any environment. PDF format is the perfect format to share documents across multiple platforms. There are several features of PDF files including password protection.

A PDF document can easily be password protected. Let’s see how we can password protect a PDF document. There are two ways to password a PDF document for free. One is using a software and the other is using an online service to password protect a PDF document. We will be discussing three tools which are a mix of both ways of password protection.

PrimoPDF

PrimoPDF by Nitro PDF Software is the best free PDF creator software. You can easily convert a Word or Excel document into a PDF document. PrimoPDF only requires drag and drop operations in order to convert a document. After installation, PrimoPDF will create a shortcut on the desktop. You can drag and drop any file to that shortcut to automatically convert the document into PDF.

If you double click the shortcut, you will be taken to PrimoPDF options. You can create a password under PDF security. If you want to use the same password for every converted document, then you can check the checkbox “Always use these settings” otherwise uncheck it so that these settings can only be used on the next document to be converted.

Download PrimoPDF free

PDFProtect

The second solution is an online solution. The online solution is the best when you want to password protect a document without installing anything on your computer. But one must take care that they should have a good Internet connection in order to use the online PDF password protecting service. This is because the PDF files need to be uploaded and downloaded again in order to complete the password protection operation.

To password protect a document online, go to pdfprotect.net, browse the file and then enter your required password. You can choose the encryption strength to be high or low. If you are using modern PDF readers, then you can leave the encryption level to high or otherwise make it low for maximum compatibility. Pressing the “Protect” button will upload the file to the service and after sometime, you will be prompted to download the password protected file.

Visit PDFProtect.net now

Weeny Free PDF Cutter

Although the main purpose of Weeny Free PDF Cutter is to cut and split PDF documents into multiple files but it has also got an option to password protect the PDF files. You can set Weeny Free PDF Cutter such that it does not split the resulting PDF file but password protects the document. You will need to enable password protection under Security settings.

Download Weeny Free PDF Cutter

I hope these tools will be beneficial for you and will help you password protect your sensitive PDF documents. If I have missed anything or you have a suggestion, please share it in the comments below.

Download Mothers Day Theme For Windows 7

Usman Khurshid — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 22:09:12 +0000

Mothers day is around the corner and it’s time to express our love for all the mothers in the world. Mothers day is usually celebrated on the second Sunday of May every year. Mothers day will be celebrated on 13th of May, 2012. Microsoft has already released a Windows 7 theme called "Furry Families" which consists of 14 high quality images depicting mothers love. All the images are of different animals in love with their babies. Let’s go through the images contained in the theme:

According to Microsoft:

Surprise the mother in your life with images of tender motherly moments in the animal world: Polar bears hugging, lions nuzzling, otters cuddling, and penguins standing in the freezing cold. There’s even a mother gopher teaching her pup to dance. A free theme for Windows 7.

Download Furry Families theme for Windows 7 and install it in your PC to express your love for you mother.