[Zacharie]

Program: KeePass v2.18
Released here

KeePass Password Safe Professional provides a helpful directory for remembering passwords and keeping them secure. While its layout was slightly confusing, its excellent results made us very happy, and to top it off, it's free.

The program's interface has a stark, directionless layout that initially turned us off. However, a visit to the Help file's instructions and some experimenting quickly opened this program up, and it actually proved to be easy to use. The program's functionality is quite simple: Follow an onscreen menu to enter a Web site's information and its corresponding user name and password. This entry is stored in an alphabetical directory with all your other entries, much like a digital filing card system. You can look up any forgotten password stored there, which will inevitably save a great deal of time and frustration. You must enter a Master password to open the program, which keeps your sensitive information safe from prying eyes and adds an overall level of security. KeePass also provided a strong feature that randomly generates passwords to meet specific security requirements, offering yet another way to secure your data and activities. KeePass might have offered a clearer layout, but its ability to generate, store and retrieve passwords was excellent. Use it, and you won't have to keep using the same passwords over and over again, just to remember them. Unwise.

KeePass Password Safe Professional is freeware. Its strengths at saving passwords outweigh any negatives, and we recommend this excellent security tool to all users.

source

[Zacharie]

Program: Kalkules v1.8.0.15
Released here

Kalkules is an universal scientific freeware calculator with an amount of nontraditional functions, which can be used particularly by high school or university students. It also offers a wide range of tools, which make your calculations easier and faster. It can evaluate expressions, draw function graphs, calculate with real complex or modulo numbers, four number systems: binary, octal, decimal, hexadecimal, fractions, and polynomials. It features evaluation history, unlimited count of brackets in the expression, wide range of arithmetic, trigonometric, and hyperbolic functions, using self-named variables, inserting some of the predefined constants, and the ability to define your own constants.

source

[Zacharie]

Program: VDownloader v3.6.943
Released here

Despite the lack of user guidance, this video-file downloader is easy to set up and use. VDownloader's interface is on the plain side and no Help file is offered, but it shouldn't take most users long to get the hang of downloading videos from their favorite sites.

The interface contains four large icons: Download, Search, Browser, and Settings. By default, VDownloader is set to monitor the clipboard when it's running, so as soon as we copied the link to a video, the program responded and asked us for Save As information. It's a small thing, but some programs don't allow you to choose a file name up front and it can be hard (without opening each file) to know what video you've downloaded if the file name is auto-assigned. The download began immediately after choosing the file name and location. You also can change this setting and manually paste a video link in to the URL field, but we preferred the time-saving clipboard monitoring step. VDownloader also lets you select the format you want to save video files in, another nice touch. Options include AVI, MP3, iPhone/iPod compatibility, and the original format.

The free program includes two useful extras. The first is the Search capability, which allows you to enter a video name and simultaneously search YouTube, Daily Motion, Google, and Yahoo Video. You can uncheck any of the four sites, but you aren't allowed to add any extras. The second extra is a built-in browser, which doesn't have any of the niceties you'll find in Firefox or Internet Explorer, but does include more than 20 bookmarks to video sites and a quick Download Video button for when you find a file you want to save. We recommend this free, easy-to-use video file downloader for any user.

source

[Zacharie]

Program: SoftPerfect Network Scanner v5.4
Released here

Looking for a way to scan your network and inventory your hardware? SoftPerfect Network Scanner offers a free and easy way to scan your network. This amazing network scanner doesn't need to be installed yet it offers dozens of features.

SoftPerfect Network Scanner

SoftPerfect Network Scanner uses a user friendly interface that uses multi-threaded IP (ICMP), NetBios and SNMP to scan your network. This software which requires no installation; not only scan your computers using ICMP (Ping) but listens to TCP ports. The software displays resources that are shared on the network whether the shares are system or hidden.

This software is intended for the system administrator and has dozens of features. The software allows you to use the shared folders or browse using Microsoft's Windows Explorer.

With the capibility to check user - defined ports, SoftPerfect Network Scanner reports back to the software user and reports if the port is open. When using the program and examining your computers, SoftPerfect Network Scanner allows you to filter your search results.

Scanning Example



Features

The many features include the ability to remotely shutdown computers across your network. With Wake-On-Lan features built in, SoftPerfect Network Scanner 'wakes' computers to perform an inventory if necessary.

SoftPerfect Network Scanner pings network computers sending an ICMP echo request, does not require administrative privileges, detects hidden shares as well as administrative shares, resolves the MAC address of network cards, retrieves logged on users, supports Wake On Lan, remote shutdown services and detects internal and external IP addresses.

With an extensive reporting system, your network report can be exported in XML, HTML, CSV or to a text file (TXT).

This software not only scans your internal network but can check external computers. Because there is no installation necessary, the utility can be saved to your jumpdrive for a quick and detailed look at networks you are performing maintenance on
.

Options



Features / Options

Loaded with options, you can define SNMP Version 1, 2, or 3 to scan SNMP devices on your network. Offering a rich array of options such as different forms of detection, Wake On LAN and full folder scan to include administrative shares and hidden shares; this scanner software is perfect for network security. Because auditing your network is of the utmost importance, SoftPerfect Network Scanner offers these options as seen in the above pictures to ensure every device on your network is detected.

Conclusion

This software is an excellent substitute for expensive software in today's economic times. The software is easy on resources using very little memory, CPU and harddrive space. Softperfect's Network Scanner is absolutely free with no nagging pop-ups and no malware or spyware.

source

[Zacharie]

Program: music2pc v2.12
Released here

Review 1

Find and download MP3 files music2PC is a MP3 downloader that you can use to find and download MP3 files from the web (not Torrent networks). Simply enter the artist name or title of the song and start the search. The search results display the title, artist and duration of the song but not the quality details. We have no idea where the app is getting the music from and whether it is legal or not. We tested it with various titles and got good results. Portable, no installation required. - source

Review 2 - "The most hassle free music downloader I have ever tried"

Pros: Been looking for a portable program like Music2pc. Portable and compact, finds plenty of music, downloads it forthwith. No nags or ads, no sending you to a web site.

Cons: Very high CPU usage while downloading, which I'm sure can be fixed in later releases.

Other Thoughts: Just launch the single EXE file and instantly do your thing. This is the most hassle free music downloader I have ever tried. - source

Review 3

music2pc, is an amazing software for music lovers, that will search and download free MP3 music from the Internet.
As the name suggests, this exclusive software will get for you free MP3 music from the Internet. This tool not only searches for MP3 music from various social websites, but will also legally download and save these MP3 files on your system. Built on a very fast and safe non-bittorrent and non-peer-to-peer method of getting MP3s, the program gives you the ultimate access for more than 100 million mp3 songs available for download. The program supports features like: you can search for music with song title, artist name, album or edition; allows you to search the live, piano, guitar or cover versions of your favorite songs; its simple interface is easy to install and run, and is free from malware, ads, or viruses.
music2pc, this free-to-use program is compatible with all portable devices: iPad, iPhone, PSP, cell phone, mp3 player, and so on. - source

[Zacharie]

Program: Stickies v7.1b
Released here

A to do list is a very tidy thing. Items are listed in orderly progression, a neat sequence of checkboxes to be marked as done in due time. For some people, that works. Others, myself included, need a bit more chaos in their organisation. Stickies lets me spread my to do list all over my desktop and arrange it so that it makes visual sense to me.

You may think having your desktop covered in sticky notes is irritating. That is actually true: It does feel cluttered, especially if you've got a large backlog of tasks you wrote down and didn't do. That's part of the magic of Stickies: It gets you to actually do your to do list, because you want to remove those notes and uncover your fancy wallpaper.

To create a new note, simply hit Win+S from any application across your system. This global shortcut can be changed or disabled, but it's on by default. There are a number of other handy shortcuts, such as Alt+Ctrl+S for creating a sticky and instantly populating it with the clipboard contents. However, this is just scratching the surface of what Stickies can do.

Stickies can contain rich text as well as images. If you type "[]" (open bracket then close bracket), Stickies automatically turns that into a checkbox. Stickies also handles Hebrew and Arabic gracefully, and does not get mixed up if a right-to-left line contains English text.

While editing a sticky note, you can press Ctrl+Shift+A to access the Set Alarm dialog. You can also do this by right clicking the note. Once there, you can set the note to popup at a certain time and date. When the time comes, the note sets itself as "always on top" and starts vibrating, moving in very rapid small motions in all directions. The effect is very noticeable.

You can also set alarms to recur. You can have Stickies remind you to water your plants every three days or update your resumé every six months, for example. You do this by right clicking a note's title bar and selecting Sleep > Recurring. Recurring notes can also have an end date.

Speaking of the title bar, you can collapse each note down to the title only. You can also use the title bar to set the note as "always on top," and of course close the note. And if you closed an important note by mistake, the Manage Stickies dialog (easily accessible through Ctrl+M from any note) lets you browse and search all notes, including closed ones. Incidentally, that means if you've written down some sensitive information in a sticky note and want to make sure it's gone, you should delete that information yourself (using plain old Backspace on your keyboard) prior to closing the sticky note.

Stickies packs so much functionality into its 1MB installer, I cannot begin to cover it all. I haven't even touched on its networking facilities, which let you send notes to other computers on your LAN.

source

[Zacharie]

Program: CleanMem v2.3.1
Released here

Review 1

2GB is hardly sufficient in today’s computing environment, especially for those involved in the graphic and gaming industry. These application can be a memory hog. If upgrading a physical RAM onto your computer is not an option, you ought to try CleanMem. As the name implies, CleanMem removes memory no longer being used by Windows. The best part is, Cleanmem is a set it and forget it program. No unwanted tweaking and fancy graphic like other RAM booster, it just works.

Cleanmem is very small as it doesn’t need to do much. First off Cleanmem doesn’t clean the memory from the processes itself! It asks Windows to do that. When the program starts up it grabs a list of running processes. It then grabs the ID of each process and calls the Windows API EmptyWorkingSet for each processes, Cleanmem of course checks the ignore list and skips those processes. Then Windows cleans the process, and once all the processes have been cleaned Cleanmem closes itself.

Does CleanMem works? Just because it doesn’t have a fancy graphic with rainbow colour bars doesn’t mean it is not working. Take a look at the before and after screenshot I managed to capture. Download CleanMem 1.4.0 (1.70MB)



Bottom line is, it works! - source

Review 2

CleanMem I've got to talk about this little program that another category editor told me about. I've been running it now for over a year and I've got to say that I almost forgot about it. You never notice it other than you eventually notice that your system is running smoother and faster. After installation, you don't even realize that it is working. The program will install and set it to run every 30 min via the windows task scheduler. You can change this to any amount of time you like by simply going to the task scheduler in windows and changing any of the options you like.

Install it and your done! The program doesn't run in the back ground, once it does its job it closes and doesn't run again until the task scheduler runs it. The program is very simple to operate as it will run and clean the memory out of all processes it can, without any user input.

This doesn't work like other memory cleaners that do nothing but force windows to free up memory by using up all the avail. memory. This old trick then causes your system to lag big time!

NEW UPDATE:

CleanMem has been upgraded to version 2.3.0.

CleanMem is now 3.5x faster. CleanMem use to take 3.5 sec to do its job and close. It now takes 1 sec. Added better support for the window positions of the program. On some users systems, if they had another program running that worked with program windows, it would cause CleanMem to save the window positions off screen, or if a user lowered their screen resolution and the old position would now be off screen. The program now checks the current screen resolution and brings the windows back on screen. Supports people with multiple monitors.

Several new cool features have been added. The most dramatic is a new CleanMem Mini Monitor. This runs separate from CleanMem. The mini monitor allows a user to keep an eye on current memory usage and clean the system memory with one click of a button. The program calls CleanMem to do its job. This new mini monitor is an addition to CleanMem, not a replacement. The mini monitor actually calls cleanmem to run, the mini monitor itself doesnt do the cleaning. CleanMem still installs and runs in the back ground via the task scheduler just as it always has. You do NOT have to use the mini monitor if you chose not to. However, I like it. You can also hide it to the tray icon.

One additional feature that I am also excited about is a feature to change cleanmem auto run time via the right click menu. Basically, when you click it, it opens the task scheduler for the user. It isn't rocket science, but it is a new handy feature. - source

[Zacharie]

Program: HandBrake v0.9.5
Released here

For a long time, I’ve been looking for something that will take media from a DVD and put it in a suitable format for watching on [insert media device here]. It’s an age old problem, you want your media on a different device, but often getting it there is a problem, especially in the open source world. Sure there are tens if not hundreds of converters, transcoders, encoders and compressors out there, but few have the actual finesse to complete the task. Most seem to use the same framework under the hood too, which often leads me to wonder how one can get it so right, and another can get it so wrong. Having played with ffmpeg and mencoder myself, whilst both are fantastic products, using them can be a little bit of a black art. You have to really understand what you’re doing with video file formats and audio bit rates to make anything decent enough to play on another medium. I have spent many an hour encoding up bits of video and comparing them for quality, with the biggest problem of all being the audio sync.

Enter HandBrake, a fairly new offering to the encoding market. Cross platform on the Windows/Linux/Mac trio, HandBrake offers not only a wide range of features, but probably the easiest and most intuitive interface out there. I’ve tried several other rippers in the past, my previous favorite being dvd::rip, however I could never get a good solid video out of it, plus the interface was exceedingly complex. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m the kind of guy that loves to be able to change every conceivable option, but I also tend to like having a simple interface that can also be used if all I want to do is click-and-go. HandBrake seems to offer the above, and then some. The finer grain controls may not be quite as fine as something like dvd::rip, but it is still perfectly adequate for the task.

I took a reference video that I generally use for testing out new encoders and tried it out. HandBrake claims to be able to take almost any video file, and convert it to a format of your choosing. However, I found difficulty getting videos that it would actually work with it. Maybe it was because I had some videos with funky formats, I don’t know, what I do know is I successfully managed to crash HandBrake several times when giving it one of these videos. The job I really wanted HandBrake for, was taking some videos from an old DVD I had, and converting them to be able to play on my PSP. Thankfully HandBrake actually did a really, really good job at this.

Inserting a DVD and choosing it from the file menu, HandBrake will first scan it for titles before adding them to a drop down box in the interface. The HandBrake screen is split into three sections; The top left rectangle giving a very simple source/destination box, below this is another rectangle of roughly the same size which gives more options for encoding. On the far right is something I call a recipe list, where you can choose your output medium. HandBrake offers four main video formats, H.264, MPEG-4 (ffmpeg), MPEG-4 (XviD) and Theora, and these are customised by selecting one of the recipes. For example, choosing PSP as the output device, will change the video type to MPEG-4 (ffmpeg) and will change the bitrate to 1024. Changing this to the PS3 makes a few modifications, the most noticeable being substituting MPEG-4 for H.264 and upping the bitrate to 2500. The only thing which is a little disappointing is the inability to change the resolution of the resulting video easily, more on this later.

As with many rippers you have the ability to decide what is most important to you and HandBrake is no different here, giving you the option to choose from, Quality, BitRate or Target Size. Usually I find a bitrate that seems to offer good video quality and good file size and this is what I did with HandBrake and found the value to be around 500 for the PSP. Starting an encoding job is quite exciting, as you get to either start it immediately, or put it into a queue. Meaning you can queue up multiple titles from a DVD and leave a disc running overnight if you like.

For a 25 minute video, the file size on the PSP turned out to be around 100Mb. Using another video format, I have previously gotten this number down to past half that size at around the same, if not higher, resolution. To be honest though, HandBrake did a fantastic job and the overall quality of the video was noticeably higher than my previous efforts. What impressed me further was when I put the same video in my media library and played it on my PS3, though the compression was noticeable, the video was really watchable and that was something I never expected, especially with the low resolution that HandBrake pumps out for the PSP.

Overall, there’s not much left to say. For DVDs, HandBrake does a fantastic job of taking the physical media and turning it into a video for use on another media player. Though the file sizes are a little larger than what I used to strive for, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t watch 8 hours of media in a 30 minutes journey, so why do I try to cram that much media in anyway. The number of options available in HandBrake is both impressive and extremely well laid out. My only gripe is the lack of control over the resolution, however on closer inspection, a brave soul can change these details in the .config/presets file. In conclusion, if you need a simple DVD -> file converter, HandBrake definitely makes a great choice.

source

[Zacharie]

Program: Calibre v0.8.38
Released here

Review

E-books have been with us for quite some time now and although there might be quite a few book enthusiasts out there that could dislike e-books because they lack the “magic” which obscurely surrounds a regular book, I believe that any book lover should embrace both the e-book and the old fashioned printed paper, as they are both simply mediums through which we can get our portion of literature.

Truth be told, devices such as the e-book reader have made reading more accessible and we now have thousands of books at our disposal within a device that weights no more than one small book. Nevertheless, the ease of access to such a large library has turned us into virtual librarians and we usually end up spending more time searching for or organizing our e-books than we’d like.

Fortunately, there’s a solution to this problem and as it happens it comes in the form of a program called Calibre, which might turn out to be your best librarian friend. Calibre will organize your e-book library, fetch dozens of newspapers for you, allow you to browse through tens of online e-book stores, or convert and make your e-books ready for your e-book reader.

Installation & Requirements

Calibre, the virtual librarian, makes a good impression as soon as you fire up the installation process. Calibre is a freeware program and it volunteers to do its work with no financial demands whatsoever. There are no ads involved in the installation, no toolbars and before you know it you will be welcomed with a Wizard which will help you setup Calibre for the type of e-book reader you might happen to own.

As for system requirements, Calibre supports the Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, Mac OS X Leopard or higher and Linux platforms altogether.

Interface

The Calibre user interface is one of the many strong points of this particular software, primarily because it’s designed to conveniently place a large number of essential features at the user’s fingertips. Amongst these features are the built in e-book browser and the newspaper downloader which benefits from a scheduler so that you will get your daily newspapers without being required to do anything.

Calibre will also hand out the possibility to create multiple libraries, preventing you from ending up with a pile of e-books that are not relevant with each other, thrown together carelessly in one folder. Furthermore you will be able to read any book via the built-in e-book reader, thus you will know how the e-book will look like on your device before transferring the file.
On the whole, Calibre undoubtedly offers tons of useful features, but the best thing about it is that all of them are easy to find, understand and utilize.

Pros

- Able to read and convert 16 e-book file-types
- Multiple newspapers can be scheduled for daily download
- Built-in e-book browser will help you fetch any book you want with great ease
- Dozens of supported languages
- Great user interface
- Provides a built-in e-book reader and converter
- A whole bunch of plug-ins available for download, including an audio-book plug-in
- Supports Windows, Mac and Linux altogether
- Freeware

Cons

- The “Download” option from the built-in e-book browser is rarely available, forcing the user to use an external Internet browser and visit the respective site

Alternatives

There are quite a few alternatives to Calibre out there, including the Google Books service which does not requires you to download any software as long as you have access to a Google account. The high-point of Google Books is that being an online service, the user is able to access his e-book library by using any computer or device that is connected to the internet.
GCstar can be considered another Calibre alternative, offering the possibility to manage not only e-books, but movies, video games or software as well. Despite all that, GCstar lacks some of the features offered by Calibre, and to put it bluntly, it’s not as charming either.

Conclusion

Calibre is undeniably one of the best tools a book enthusiast could have on his/her computer. It certainly offers a great deal of features alongside an easy to use interface, but what makes Calibre seem like a great program is the fact that it possesses a certain charm about it, which gives you the feeling that your e-book library is in good hands.

source

[Zacharie]

Program: CDisplayEx v1.8
Released here

Comics are very popular to many readers. This attracts people from all ages including the dads and uncles. Comics can now not only be read through hard copies, you can also read them at home in your computer. But you need a software that will allow you to read comics and here comes CDisplayEX to the rescue.

CDisplayEX is your desktop comics reader. There are many comic book readers out there but the software stands out from the rest because of its fast image viewer. Some will take a while before the image loads but with this program, you will get the comic reading experience like your holding it in your hands. The software also helps you organize the comics in your hard drive and can read many archive formats. With different languages that they are upgrading plus the easy to use interface, this is the best comic book reader for you. - source


CDisplayEx is a comic viewer application.

Viewing of your favorite comics on your computer might sound like a simple task but in effect until CDisplay came along, it was a rather complicated and bothersome job, as it required some sort of image viewing application just to get the thing started. CDisplay was a step up from that and CDisplayExis the next one.

CDisplayEx is a unique combination of image viewer and archive reader which allows you to see all your comics in a simple and easy to manage way which doesn’t require any additional applications whatsoever and makes the viewing of your comics a smooth and enjoyable experience. And the best part of this program is that fact that it is extremely easy to install and due to its user-friendly interface absolutely everybody can use it. - source

[Zacharie]

Program: ComicRack v0.9.152
Released here

ComicRack is a powerful and free program which lets you read downloaded comics in many formats, including the popular .CBR and .CBZ formats. The odds are good that if you recognize those file types, you will want this program.

We all know Rule 34 of the Internet, but there's another rule, not named or numbered as far as I know: "If you discover you need a program to do something, odds are, someone's written it." So it is with Comic Rack. I recently discovered a site which hosts legal downloads of out-of-copyright Golden Age comics, and after grabbing a few, I realized I needed a better way to read and organize my suddenly growing collection. Thus, I discovered ComicRack.

ComicRack aspires to be "iTunes for your comics," and it shares some features with that program. It's both an organizer and a viewer, letting you create libraries and filtered lists of your comics, as well as displaying them for viewing, with many choices as to page layout and display features, including a right-to-left "manga mode", page rotation, and much more. Indeed, "And much more..." is sort of the catch phrase of Comic Rack.

ComicRack is not just feature-rich, it's feature-Bill-Gates-rich. The number of options is incredible. Just to pick one example, on the "Pages" tab, you can set the type of each page to any of 11 categories, such as "Front Cover," "Story," or "Advertising," then filter the pages menu to just show particular categories. There's always something new to discover as you dig through the menus and dialog boxes. You'll need to dig, too, which brings us to the downsides of the program.

A labor of love and a one-man show, ComicRack is supported by an enthusiastic community. Any imaginable feature, and a few I never thought of, is crammed in. However, as with many such programs, enthusiasm for coding doesn't translate into enthusiasm for the tedious work of documenting, and the online wiki which serves as the manual is painfully sparse. It's a cardinal rule of interface design that the user should never be surprised, but ComicRack is full of surprises. Panes and lists appear and disappear almost randomly, and while you can work out the rules and the options which control them with a little effort, it can take a while to get to the point where you can load and read your comics without finding some aspect of the interface doing something you don't expect.

ComicRack is 100% free software, though, and that forgives many sins. Donations are encouraged but not required. ComicRack is regularly updated and supported, with an active community. I strongly recommend checking it out if you download comics to read on your computer. And if you're looking for a source of legal comics to download, check out GoldenAgeComics.co.uk.

Note: This program is donationware. It is free to try, but the author accepts and encourages donations towards further development.

source

[Zacharie]

Program: HoneyView Build#5834
Released here

HoneyView Portable is a fast image viewer supports archived image file for comics/manga/photos. Its design is simple and the interface skin can be changed. You can set HoneyView as your default image viewer and also add a shell context menu. You can view pictures like a slideshow and change the transition time from 1 to 90 seconds, repeat or randomize, and select the way the slides are changing. You can view pictures with applied filters, changed interpolation method (Bilinear, Bicubic or Lanczos), additional effects (negative or gamma correction), rotated, or zoomed in or out. In preferences, you can customize many other options such as file associations, customize keyboard and mouse input, and customize the background color. - source


HoneyView is a small, compact, fast and innovative image viewer that supports archived image file for comics/manga/photos.
If you need a simple graphics viewer supporting archived image file for comics/manga/photos; then this is your right choice. It is fast and compact supporting formats like: BMP, JPG, GIF/Animation GIF, TIFF, PNG, TGA, PSD, JPEG 2000(JP2, J2K), JPEG XR/HD Photo(WDP, HDP), DNG; and supporting Archive Formats: ZIP/CBZ, RAR/CBR, LZH/LHA, TAR, 7Z, HV3, ALZ, EGG. You can get it for free with all its multiple features such as: viewing images in slide shows with transition, light design with changeable skin, view images with applied filters, double page comic view, left-right reading, right-left reading, full-screen, customizable options such as file associations, customize keyboard and mouse input, customize the background color, and much more.
HoneyView, the graphic viewer supports multiple languages as: English, French, Polish, and Chinese(simplified). - source

[Zacharie]

Overview 1

Digital Comic Book Readers for PC (Freeware)

Digital comic books are usually archives of individual page images saved with the extension CBZ or CBR, which are simply renamed ZIP and RAR files for convenience. The format was made popular by CDisplay – one of the first comic book reader - but is now used by many other comic book reading programs. Essentially, comic book readers are sequential image viewers with the ability to display images contained within archives, and often comes with extra features designed to allow comfortable reading of comics. Today, we will look at a number of different eComic readers available for Windows.


CDisplay - Released here



As mentioned earlier, CDisplay is one of the first comic book readers created because existing programs were too general purpose and thus awkward to use for the purpose of reading comics. Although no longer developed, CDisplay remains one of the best comic book reader in existence today.

CDisplay can read JPEG, PNG and static GIF images which are automatically ordered alphabetically. Images can also be viewed from a folder or collected in a .zip, .rar, .ace or .tar archive file. Many automatic page sizing options such as fit to width, fit to height, auto scroll including choices to display one or two pages at one time. CDisplay can also automatically adjust colour balance and remove yellow hues which are often present on scans of old comics.

There is also present a slideshow mode that scrolls through the images automatically. Unfortunately, there is no option to adjust the slideshow interval and the default rate is too fast.


CDisplayEx - Released here



CDisplayEx is a comic book reader based on CDisplay. It has all the features of CDisplay and some additional ones. All tools that were only accessible through menus on CDisplay are laid out in a toolbar. Many of these are available with a single click.

CDisplayEx supports a wide range of file formats such as CBZ, CBR, CBT, RAR, ZIP, TAR, 7z, LZH, ARJ, CAB, TAR.GZ and TAR.BZ2. It also supports BMP images over and above JPEG, PNG and GIF.

CDisplayEx also has consistent keyboard shortcuts, much better than those on CDisplay. For example, in CDisplay, you can use the Up/Down arrow keys to scroll the page up or down. You might expect the Left/Right arrow key to take you to the previous and next page respectively. But it doesn’t. Instead, you have to use the PageUp and PageDown keys. On CDisplayEx the Up/Down arrow keys is all you need.


ComicRack - Released here



ComicRack comic book reader includes a library manager that can scan folders and list all comic book archive files on the disk. You can create folders and lists to organize your comic books, customize the lists to show just the information you need and use advanced tools to tag and edit the information for your eComics. You can also Smart lists to display dynamic lists based on eComic info (never read, author, series etc.)

As regards reading comic books, it has all the features that you can expect from a modern comic book reader: different display modes, full screen, information overlays, magnifier, color adjustments, automatic background color matching and a multi tab interface to quickly switch between eComics.

ComicRack even opens PDF files and converts them to comic book archive formats like CBZ and CBR.


Comical - Released here



Comical is a bare bones comic reader. A column of thumbnails on the left and the page viewer on the right makes up the interface. Navigation features include up, down, next and previous page, home and end, and display options are limited to fit to width, fit to height, original and custom zoom. It can open CBR/RAR and CBZ/ZIP comic book archives, directories of images and display JPEG, PNG, GIF, and TIFF images. That sums up Comical.

Comical is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.


HoneyView - Released here



HoneyView supports several archive formats such as ZIP/CBZ, RAR/CBR, LZH/LHA, TAR, 7Z, HV3, ALZ, and EGG. It also has a wide support for image formats including BMP, JPG, GIF/Animated GIF, TIFF, PNG, TGA, PSD, JPEG 2000(JP2, J2K), JPEG XR/HD Photo(WDP, HDP), and DNG(Adobe Digital Negative). This allows HoneyView to be used as a general purpose image viewer.

HoneyView also has a slideshow viewer, which unlike the one in CDisplay, has adjustable transition times ranging from 1 to 90 seconds, and options like repeat or randomize. You can view pictures with applied filters, changed interpolation method (Bilinear, Bicubic or Lanczos), additional effects (negative or gamma correction), rotated, or zoomed in or out.

In preferences, you can customize many other options such as file associations, customize keyboard and mouse input, customize the background color, and so on.


GonVisor - Released here



This is another comic book reader with some interesting options. One option is that GonVisor is able to load images from a folder recursively, which means that you can point the application to a folder and it will load all images inside that folder and subfolders. The other option is to load images from a PDF file. GonVisor can also create a CBZ or CBR file from the images loaded from a folder.

Instead of thumbnails that most comic book readers display on the sidebar, GonVisor displays a list of filenames of the images. Thumbnails are available, but on a separate pop-up window.

GonVisor also has a basic library manager to manage your comic book collection, and search tool that can locate all CBR or CBZ files stored in local or network disks. Other features worth mentionaing are a slideshow viewer with customized time interval between images, and a boss key that instantly minimized the application and changes the taskbar icon to that of Microsoft Excel.

[Zacharie]

Program: Format Factory v2.90
Released here

Review Details

Company – FreeTime
Version – 2.50
Operating System – Windows 7 32 Bit

Summary

A while back I wrote on this great free media converter, today I thought I’d write a full review on the software. Format Factory is an ‘all-in-one’ free media converter that lets you convert files among all popular image, audio and video formats.

Ratings

Interface (9/10)
Ease of use (10/10)
Memory Usage (8/10)
Features (10/10)
Price (10/10)
Help and Support (10/10)

Review

Interface (10/10)

Format Factory comes with 4 skins, with a bunch of new age icons and color combinations for its skins. Personally I like the ‘Obsidian’ skin, with the massive inventory of features, the interface is arranged with a sidebar menu to convert video, audio, images or to burn it in separate expandable menus. The interface is pretty much perfect however I don’t like the occassional weird blurring of the header ‘effect’ which wasn’t seen in previous versions. It also supports 48 languages so if you are viewing this with Google Translate the application should have native support for your language too!

Ease of use (10/10)

Format Factory is very easy to use, at a glance, even though it has plenty of features, you have access to each of them mostly with a click of a button or with 2 or 3 at the most, all the icons are supported with text below it so all the features are pretty much self explanatory.

Memory Usage (8/10)

Format Factory takes very little memory in comparison to its competitors. While on standby it takes an efficient 25MB of memory and doesn’t consume much of CPU resources. During conversion, the computer is still very usable with room for enough multi tasking, it does drain the CPU a bit while converting as all other converters however comparatively it allows for some alternate processes to be run.

Features (9/10)

Format Factory is packed with all the features you’d look for in a media converter. It supports a massive inventory of file formats in all forms of media (images, video, audio), burning from a CD or DVD, and also little features like tray conversion reducing clutter, shutdown after completion, pausing of conversion (in case another heavy process needs to be run while conversion) and more. It also supports merging of files and addition of subtitles to converted video files. The only feature it lacks is the ability to burn to CD/DVD, while this is a feature of a dedicated burning tool, the addition of this feature could well make it the ‘ultimate’ media conversion and burning tool. It also does not support any appending of effects to a converted image, video or audio while images maybe appended with text.

Price (10/10)

This is arguably one of the best freeware products around. Freeware has a broad base of software products and giving it a title of ‘one of the best’ in that niche is giving it a lot of authority, however I could safely say it deserves it, for the perfection in the program, the vast number of features and in comparison to the rest of the products in this category of software which are usually shareware, Format Factory is indeed one of the best freeware around.

Help and Support (10/10)

Format Factory comes with a fully compiled help file complete with screenshots in English and Chinese and pointers on how to use the application, thus even the completely clueless newbie can get the software to work, this help file coupled with the self explanatory interface makes using this application a breeze even for the novice. There’s also a support Email if you are unable to click a mouse and still can’t get things to work.

Other Notes

The application is highly portable, while a separately labeled portable version is not available, the application has handlers to create preferences even though it might be stored in the registry (I didn’t see an INI file) without running into an error thus the folder can be copied on a portable drive and on launch it would seamlessly ‘install itself’ into the local system.

The program displays two links within the application to eBay and BrotherSoft, making it ‘adware’ however it troubles no one and actually makes the interface cooler with the two logos, a small price to pay for all the benefits of the application.

Overall

Reading the review, you’d see I have no complains except for a little thing here and there, however if you would be converting a file at any point, look no further than Format Factory and you’d save yourself time and thank me afterwards.

source

[Zacharie]

Program: DAEMON Tools Lite v4.45.2
Released here

DAEMON Tools Lite is a virtual DVD-ROM emulator based on a SCSI miniport driver. It emulates max. 4 DVD-ROM drives and works with CD/DVD images created by many burning programs. It is great on notebooks without a physical CD-/DVD-ROM drive or to save akku power and speed up CD/DVD access. In opposite to other CD-/DVD-ROM emulators DAEMON Tools Lite doesn't use a proprietary container format. The advantage is that you can burn the images you're using with DAEMON Tools Lite right away or just test an image before burning it to see if it was created correctly. DAEMON Tools Lite works with most image formats. Moreover it has a special feature to make physical (burned) backups of your CD / DVD images when it is possible. It supports Alcohol120%-Images (MDS-Files) and RMPS-Media. It's also great if you want save Power on your Notebook. - source


I really don't understand why there are so many reviews full of complaints!! True, there is an option to install a toolbar...so unless you're illiterate, just READ THE INSTRUCTIONS during installation and un-check the box. True, it doesn't have a ton of features like "system integration," but what do you expect from a free, LITE version?? That's why there's an option to purchase the PRO version, which will have more bells 'n' whistles! True, Softpedia has listed a price for this software, but it's probably just to let people know that there is a version out there that you can purchase if you want.

There really is no need to get so anal about a great program that you're getting FOR FREE!!! Just thank the developers, and support them monetarily if you can.

...and now for the review:

This program is excellent, and I highly recommend it. - source