Archive for the 'Product Review' Category

Piriform announced today the production ready release (v1.02.085) of their hard disk defragmentation tool, Defraggler.

Defraggler is an outstanding utility and a great companion to Piriform’s other products, the famous CCleaner and Recuva.

Defraggler is a far superior tool than the defrag utility embedded into Windows and other third-party defrag tools for a number of reasons:

1. Defrag Individual files.  Defraggler lets you select and defrag specific files.  This allows you to quickly defrag the files you want without having to wait for the entire hard drive to finish.  You can select to defrag the entire drive if you want to.
2. Portable.  Defraggler consists of a single EXE file that is less then 1MB in size.  This makes a great addition to any computer techs toolkit.  Simply put on a portable drive or memory stick and use it on any PC without having to install it.
3. Multiple Windows OS Support.  Defraggler works on all Windows releases since 2000 including 2000, 2003, XP and Vista - including 64-bit versions.  It supports both NTFS and FAT32 file systems.
4. File Map.  After Defraggler analyzes your drive, it lets you shows a map of the drive and allows you to select a file - or multiple files - and lets you know where on the drive it is located.

And, of course, Defraggler is freeware which means you never have to pay a licensing fee nor worry about licensing issues.

Click here to Visit the Defraggler Page in the Free Software Catalog.

Click here to see all of Piriform’s products.

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IcoFX by Attila Kovrig has been added to the Free Software Catalog. IcoFX is a robust and feature rich icon editor that is one of the best I’ve seen, free or otherwise. This represents the first title to be added to the catalog that is exclusively for the purpose of creating and editing icons.

IcoFX supports Windows XP, Windows Vista and Macintosh OS X icon format. You can easily convert between the formats as well as import icons from and export them to several other image formats. It supports several color resolutions including True Color + Alpha and transparency. It supports resolutions from 16×16 to 256×256. You can also extract add, edit and delete icons within EXE files. Icons can be extracted from DLL files as well. You can even extract icons directory from your desktop.

The image editor itself is also chock full of features. It supports all of the drawing tools you would expect to find in a professional image editor like fill, brush, spray, color picker and more. It supports over 40 different effects including drop shadow, sharpen/blur, brighten/darken and many more. There is also support for custom filters so you can create your own effects. The color palette supports RGB and HSB adjustments as well transparency.

Users will find the interface very intuitive and familiar. I was able to get started with the tool right away - without the need for a help file or tutorials. Which is good because it seems those features are “works in progress”. Links to those resources on the official web site and from the program’s help menu directed me to blank pages. Hopefully we’ll see these items fleshed out soon.

IcoFX has received numerous awards and has been certified by a number of third-parties for being spyware free. I have not experienced any anomaly with it since I began using it and recommend it with confidence. If you are looking for a free icon editor, this is one you should absolutely consider. For now at least it is my icon editor of choice.

Click here for IcoFX in the Free Software Catalog.

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I’ve mentioned CCleaner in a few articles that I’ve written on PC security and performance. In this article I would like to go a little deeper with this outstanding tool for Windows.

CCleaner - formally known as Crap Cleaner - is a tool from Piriform that lets you optimize your system and keep your privacy protected. CCleaner does this with a a variety of features.

The Cleaner

The first tool CCleaner provides is the Cleaner. The Cleaner’s job is to clean up your disk by removing a variety of unused files. These include temporary files, the browser cache, cookies and more. It supports all of the major components of Windows including IE and can also clean up the temporary and cache files of a variety third-party applications such as Firefox, Opera, Adobe Reader, MS-Office and many more. A very simple interface allows you to pick and choose what will be cleaned up each time you run CCleaner.

While eliminating these files can help cover up things like your browsing history, a more important benefit is to help maintain your privacy. When you login to a website, those sites leave cookies on your machine. If your machine gets infected with spyware, those cookies could make their way back to a hackers PC where he can use them in an attempt to access your online services. By clearing this data from your system on a regular basis you can help prevent identity theft or worse.

Another great benefit is the additional disk space you get. The first time I run CCleaner on a client’s machine it typically recovers several hundred megabytes of disk space and sometimes well over a gig.

A Better Recycle Bin

One of CCleaner’s options is to add context menus to the Window’s Recycle bin. This lets you “Open CCleaner” so that you can manage its configuration. “Run CCleaner” lets you run the clean process. With CCleaner keeping your system clean is as simple as emptying your Recycle Bin (which CCleaner also does). I recommend executing the “Run CCleaner” command once every few days or anytime you would like sensitive information - like login cookies - removed from your PC.

Registry Cleaner

The next feature included with CCleaner is the Registry Cleaner. Use this tool to remove unused and old entries including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more. It includes a registry backup tool so you can undo your actions if a problem occurs. However, I have not yet seen a problem caused by this feature, whereas, I have had some using other registry cleaners.

Additional Tools

CCleaner also includes a handy uninstaller that works just as good - if not better - than Windows’ “Add and Remove Programs” feature. One thing is for certain, it builds and loads the list of installed software much faster than the Windows tool does.

The Startup feature lets you see and remove any entries that automatically start programs. This is a great feature if you find the number of icons in your system tray growing. By stopping some of these unnecessary programs from loading at startup you can greatly improve the performance of your PC.

Options

CCleaner has a variety of easy to set configurations. In the Settings screen you can configure CCleaner to run automatically at startup and determine which menu items appear on the Recycle Bin. There is also a setting to determine the level of secure deletion. CCleaner currently supports normal deletion, 1 pass, 3 passes (DOD standard), 7 passes (NSA standard) and even 35 passes when deleting files. CCleaner takes longer to run if you choose a high number of passes, but the more passes the less likely any data can be recovered using any known method.

Other features let you identify files that should be included in clean up as well as files and cookies that should be excluded. This is very useful if you like certain websites to remember your login. You can tell CCleaner to keep those cookies so you don’t have to re-login every time you clean your system. This is not an option with IE and Firefox’s remove cookies features. With the built-in tools they provide, it’s all or nothing.

Because of it’s ease of install, it’s effectiveness at keeping your machine optimized - and because it’s completely free - I highly recommend this great tool for all Windows users.

Click here to find CCleaner in the Free Software Catalog.

I would love to here about your experiences with this and other cleaning tools that you may of used.

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WebEx has announced that their PCNow product is now Mac friendly and can even be used with the iPhone.

Connect PCs and Macs

Now you can connect to any PC or Mac from a remote PC, Mac, or mobile phone including the iPhone. This is a great feature for all us that use a variety of technology platforms.

Great Remote Control Access

As always PCNow offers great remote control features. If you are not using Windows XP Pro, then you don’t have Microsoft’s Remote Desktop built-in and that means you need a third party solution. WebEx’s PCNow is a great option. The money you save on the gas and tolls can easily offset the cost of WebEx with just a few days of telecommuting.

You can also invite a guest to view or control your desktop for anytime collaboration or troubleshooting. It’s also a great solution for doing web presentation and training sessions. Pass control of a computer for troubleshooting and technical help. I currently use this feature with a few clients and it works very well. I find it to be much better solution than the Microsoft Remote Assistance because it doesn’t require my client to have an MSN account.

If you are looking for remote desktop or web presentation solution - or even want to remote into your PC from your iPhone - highly recommend this product. Sign up for free 30-day trial now.