Recent Posts
Recent Posts Tagged With 'freeware'
Linux applications: Part 1 - Productivity
As I mentioned in a recent post, I have recently switched to a Linux distribution as my operating system of choice. Many other users may be put off from making a similar switch because they are concerned that they may not be able to use the applicati...
Weekend Website: PortableApps.com
I have not run this feature in ages, but I decided to bring it out of retirement to feature an excellent site: PortableApps.com. With the increasing popularity of USB flash drives and memory cards many software producers are creating versions of thei...
Where has all my hard-drive space gone? - Reloaded
Just as you can never have enough cupboard space in your home, you can never have enough hard-drive space. Nevertheless, occasionally we all have to sort through our storage and throw out a few things to make some more room. This is often easier sai...
How to save paper when printing pdf files
In these days of environmental concern and financial insecurity every little helps, including being able to save paper when printing documents. The Portable Document Format is an incredibly popular file format that can be viewed in Acrobat Reader (de...
Make any window stay on top
Some applications have an option to make their windows stay visible even when you select another application. While using my webcam on Skype the other day I went searching for the option to make the webcam window stay on top but I could not find it a...
Two applications for safer computing
I recently suffered from the DNSChanger trojan. This particularly nasty piece of malware changes the DNS settings on the infected PC to a server which then redirects the web browser either to advertising or more maliciously to phishing sites. Unfortu...
Another three top freeware applications
It has been a while since I suggested any freeware, but I have recently had need to find a decent video converter, a good FTP client, and some way to back-up my blog.The free version of Any Video Converter is the best tool that I have found for conve...
Tweak UI: free MS Power Toy for Windows XP
I should start with an apology for not having posted anything here for a while. I have been rather busy for the last few weeks, but I am back now posting more PC help and advice starting with the most powerful of Microsoft's Power Toys for XP: Tweak ...
Command Window Here: Free MS PowerToy for XP
In the last post I have instructions for using the Command Prompt to navigate to a particular folder; however, there is an easier way to do this in Windows XP by installing a PowerToy (this feature is already available in Vista).To install this featu...
A Safari through Windows and a new Firefox
SafariApple's web browser is now available for Windows XP and Vista. Safari had previously only been available on Macintosh operating systems. The browser is certainly quick and uses about as much memory as Mozilla Firefox; however, Safari takes up m...
Freeware round-up
To celebrate six months of Bloody Computer! I have decided to list all the freeware software mentioned here blog so far (partly to prompt me to update the 'Quality Freeware' list in the left-hand column - now renamed 'Recommended Freeware') So, witho...
How to defrag your drive efficiently
If your computer is running slowly you may have been told to defragment your hard drive. This because as large files are saved to the hard-drive they are often broken up into file fragments and stored in the gaps between other file fragments. This in...
Tag those audio files and show them to the World
If you have a large collection of MP3s, WMAs and other audio files, you probably have quite a few where the tag information isn't set up properly. In other words, they don't come up with the correct track name or artist in your media player.Editing t...
Free Lightweight Alternatives to Bloatware
We have to install many programs to open the variety of files we are sent or download off the Internet, and we have to install more programs to keep in touch with people on the Internet.These programs are often quite large and the install files can t...
Five freeware image manipulation tools
The GIMPThis is a fully featured image editor with an interesting name - it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program (apparently). This is an incredibly powerful application with features that rivals professional software like Photoshop. Whilst thi...
From screen to video: recording Windows
As you will have seen in my last post I have at last added video to this site. I used a handy freeware application called CamStudio to record what I was doing on my screen.This software has some excellent features that include: recording of vocal co...
Bring files back from the dead, continued...
The authors of PC Inspector File Recovery recommend that you install it on a different drive from the one you want to retrieve lost files from. This may not always be possible, but if you have a second drive or a USB memory stick, then install the so...
Bring files back from the dead
Even after you have deleted a file, and emptied the Recycle Bin, you may still be able to recover the file. This is because the data in the file has not been removed, at least until the drive is defragmented, rather Windows just ignores the data that...
Toolbars gone AWOL
There is a bug in Windows XP that causes the toolbars in Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer (the thing that opens when you double-click on My Computer etc) to disappear.Doug Knox has written an excellent little program to fix this problem. Downlo...
Three free video tools
If you have a TV tuner card or video capture card then you can do worse than give dscaler a try. This free software combats the problems of interlacing and other visual quirks in captured video. It enables you to capture video from a hardware source...
"Can you hear it?" Three Freeware Audio Applications
Winamp has long been a popular mp3 player developing a large user community. Members of this community submit a plethora of skins, plug-ins and other add-ons to the Winamp website. Winamp also offers support for iPods and other mp3 players, and funct...
Five top freeware applications
Before spending your hard earned cash on software, it is always worth looking to see what is available for three. In this article I will look at five free applications that I use myself.First up, and probably most importantly, we have a virus checker...
Where has all my hard-drive space gone?
Just as you can never have enough cupboard space in your home, you can never have enough hard-drive space. Nevertheless, occasionally we all have to sort through our storage and throw out a few things to make some more room. This is often easier sai...
Making Windows run faster: programs that run automatically
The more programs you have running on your computer the slower it is. So one way to squeeze better performance out of your PC is to run fewer programs. Many applications you have installed will run programs when you start up Windows. Not all of these...
