TeraCopy is truly the best way of copying files in Windows

Overview:

TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user a lot of features.


Features:

* Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.

* Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click.

* Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.

* Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.

* Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.

* Full Unicode support.


Review:

Copying large files in Windows XP just sucks, a lot. Not only do you get subpar speeds most of the time, the damn remaining time fluctuates so much that you wonder how nobody at Microsoft could come up with something better. Thankfully there is a much more competent alternative in the form of TeraCopy. Not only TeraCopy is faster that the standard explorer copy it can also pause and resume transfers, skip bad files without canceling the whole copying process, add files to the queu in an already started copying process and completely replace the standard Windows explorer copy which is something truly awesome and handy. Teracopy also shows accurate progress reports in the form of percentage of copying so far, time remaining, numbers of files to be copied and did i mention it's portable? For all this reasons i truly suggest you ditch the old crappy way of copying files in Windows and use TeraCopy. Available for Windows 2000/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php

Frontmotion login spices up your windows logons

Frontmotion login changes your boring normal logon with flashy animated graphics, its awesome because it requires no extra system resources or dll hacking plus it supports user made logons.

Features

• User reconfigurable logon interface
• Interactive Macromedia Flash Themes
• Remote Desktop support in Windows XP and Terminal Services support.
• Fast User Switching support in Windows XP (Standalone and Domain Mode)
• Configurable Windows 2000 or Windows XP security behavior (Runs Task Manager on Ctrl-Alt-Del)
• Screen Rotation support
• Windows XP Password Reset Wizard support.
• No DLL hacking required. Safe even after Service Pack upgrades.
• Built-in 'recovery mode'.

Benefits

• System Branding
• Combine with Flash Remoting to present dynamic information

Active Directory Support

• MSI remote deployment using AD
• Security Policy (GPO) support
• User setting override

front motion login is a free download for Windows NT, 2000 and Windows XP

get it at http://www.frontmotion.com/FMLogin/index.htm

GPU-Z shows you all you need to know about your video card

GPU-Z is the perfect companion to CPU-Z since the latter can`t give information about your video card, with GPU-Z you will know everything there is to know about your video card like its name, default clocks, display information, driver name, Etc.
in addition you can upload your results to an online database showing all the results uploaded so far, unfortunately i couldn`t run the program because of the crappy savage integrated card that i have in my computer, but don`t let that let you down since the program supports most mainstream cards from ATI and Nvidia plus since its being constantly updated you can be sure it will support future cards too.
GPU-Z is a great little utility for windows 2000/XP/Vista.

Features

* Support NVIDIA and ATI cards
* Displays adapter, GPU and display information
* Displays overclock, default clocks and 3D clocks (if available)
* Validation of results
* No installation required
* Support for Windows 2000 / XP / Vista (both 32 and 64 bit versions are supported)

get it at http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

Need to access your BIOS but don`t have the password?, use CmosPwd

CmosPwd can crack, backup and restore BIOS passwords, you can even kill/clear the Cmos if cmospwd can`t crack the bios. There are several ways of using Cmospwd but the one i found the most simple and straightforward was to simply create a DOS boot disk and run it from there since if you want to run cmospwd from windows you have to install a potentially dangerous driver.


Here`s a small tutorial:

1.- right click on the portable device that you want to use as a DOS boot disk, it can be a usb flash drive or a floppy disk but i had to use a floppy disk since my BIOS wasn`t configured to boot from an USB device.

2.- select the format option , then from the window that appears check the "Create an MS-DOS startup disk" and click start.

3.- Download the cmospwd zip and extract it, then enter the new created folder and look for another folder called DOS, copy this folder to your newly created MS-DOS startup disk (I copied the whole cmospwd-5.0 folder but this should work too).

4.- Reboot your computer and pay extra attention as to what kind of BIOS you have, look for the BIOS word and the word right beside it, write the BIOS name and write it down since you will be needing that later.

5.- The DOS interface should start automatically from MS-Dos disk you have created.

6.- A prompt should appear , now simply type CD DOS and the prompt should change into something like A:\DOS: , then type cmospwd and the program should start.

7.- CmosPwd will show a long list of names, these are the different types of BIOS it can handle, locate your BIOS name on the list and write down the symbols that appear on the right side.

8.- Now once you are at the prompt again type cmospwd then / and finally the symbols that belonged to the name of your BIOS.

9.- Finally it will show the commands that it can do like backup,restore, Etc. however if you don`t wanna do all those things or find them too complicated just type cmospwd / K this will attempt to clear the BIOS erasing the password, however keep in mind that this will also erase all of the BIOS settings that are critical to the functioning of your computer so you will probably want to enter the BIOS and load the optimal values so that you can keep using your PC.



CmosPwd is a great program that just helped me in getting rid of my nagging BIOS password that i had been trying to bypass for years, i definitely recommend it. Available for Windows DOS/98/NT/W2K/XP/2003 and linux.



Works with the following BIOSes

• ACER/IBM BIOS
• AMI BIOS
• AMI WinBIOS 2.5
• Award 4.5x/4.6x/6.0
• Compaq (1992)
• Compaq (New version)
• IBM (PS/2, Activa, Thinkpad)
• Packard Bell
• Phoenix 1.00.09.AC0 (1994), a486 1.03, 1.04, 1.10 A03, 4.05 rev 1.02.943, 4.06 rev 1.13.1107
• Phoenix 4 release 6 (User)
• Gateway Solo - Phoenix 4.0 release 6
• Toshiba
• Zenith AMI

Get it at http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/CmosPwd

WinMD5Sum will check and compare the MD5 sums of files

Overview:

WinMD5 is a small utility for the checking and comparing of MD5 sums.

Review:

Checking the integrity of a downloaded file its not easy but it could be with winMD5sum. Some websites give the MD5 checksum of a file for verification purposes, with winMd5sum you can compare the checksum of the file you have downloaded versus the checksum given at the site, if they match your file has been downloaded correctly, if its not a match then your download is corrupt. Using winMd5 is very easy and straightforward, it evens adds a sendto menu entry for easy checking of files. In conclusion WinMD5sum is a simple way of checking if you have downloaded something correctly.


Get it at http://www.nullriver.com/products/winmd5sum

System Spec is a portable utility for the gathering of info about your PC

Overview:

What is System Spec ?, A utility to produce a specification of your system's hardware and software.
With System Spec you can see, save and print a complete spec of your PC. This standalone, system information utility can also perform various windows functions. Additional advanced info includes CPU, drives, applications, display, memory, networking, internet, CD / DVD drives and more.

Features:

System Information Shown

* Computer Name
* Username
* IP Address
* MAC Address
* Windows version and service pack
* Windows Serial Number
* Internet Explorer Version
* Memory
* CPU Type and speed
* Calculated CPU Speed
* Sound card type
* Video and virtual video adapters
* Screen Resolution
* Network Present
* Network Adapters
* AC Power Status for laptops
* Battery Charge Status for laptops
* Time Zone
* CD / DVD Make and model
* COM Ports
* LPT Ports
* Mouse capabilities
* Hard Disks
* Hard Disks Serial Number
* BIOS Date
* PC Serial number
* Manufacturer
* PC Product
* PCMCIA Laptops
* USB ports
* Firewire ports
* Motherboard
* Modem

Windows function such as shutting down and run can be performed from the System menu. The Control Panel menu allows you to quickly open items from the Control Panel.

Other screen and system information shown.

* Personal
* Memory
* Display
* Drives
* CD / DVD
* CPU
* CPU Meter
* Processes
* Services
* Internet
* Programs
* Start-up
* Network
* Network Adapters
* Browse Network
* User List
* Printers
* Sound
* Devices


Review:

Knowing your computer is important, it allows you to know its capabilities if you want to upgrade your computer or in looking a specific driver. With that said one of the most simple and straightforward ways of getting to know your PC has to be system spec, just run it and system spec will show a basic overview of the hardware and software that you have, you can see more advanced reports using the icons on the upper right, in addition you can run several windows functions from one place making this a good method of running those services.
In conclusion system spec is pretty awesome and portable too, so use it if you want learn more about your computer hardware. Available for Windows 98/2000/XP.


Get it at http://www.alexnolan.net/software/sysspec.htm

Multiple Image Resizer .NET is an excellent batch image processor

Overview:

With Multiple Image Resizer .NET, you can resize, add borders, add text, overlay images, crop, rotate and flip - with a few simple mouse clicks.


Features:

Batch Image Processing Features


* Resize images

* Rotate images

* Flip images

* Add borders to images

* Add text to images including file and Exif information

* Crop images

* Overlay / Watermark images with another image


Other Features


* Flexible command line batch image processing scripting engine

* Preview of unprocessed and processed images

* Ability to save and load image processing settings

* Ability to alter the order in which batch processing features are applied to images

* Customisable user interface

* Fully integrated help documentation

* Check for updates feature

* Multi-language - English, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, French, Portuguese, Czech, Galician, German, Italian and Hungarian



Supported Image Files


Multiple Image Resizer .NET can open images in 28 image formats, and save processed images in 16 image formats:


* Windows Bitmap .bmp - [Open and Save]

* Dr. Halo .cut - [Open]

* DirectDraw Surface .dds - [Open]

* Enhanced Windows Metafile .emf - [Open and Save]

* Exchangeable Image File .exif - [Open and Save]

* Graphics Interchange Format .gif - [Open and Save]

* High Dynamic Range .hdr - [Open and Save]

* Windows Icon .ico - [Open and Save]

* Amiga IFF .iff - [Open]

* Deluxe Paint .lbm - [Open]

* JPEG Network Graphics .jng - [Open]

* JPEG Format .jpg, .jpeg, .jif, .jpe - [Open and Save]

* Commodore 64 Koala .koa - [Open]

* Multiple Network Graphics .mng - [Open]

* Portable Bitmap ASCII & Binary .pbm - [Open and Save]

* Kodak PhotoCD .pcd - [Open]

* Zsoft Paintbrush PCX Bitmap .pcx - [Open]

* Portable Graymap ASCII & Binary .pgm - [Open and Save]

* Portable Network Graphics .png - [Open and Save]

* Portable Pixelmap ASCII & Binary .ppm - [Open and Save]

* Adobe Photoshop .psd - [Open]

* Sun Rasterfile .ras - [Open]

* Truevision Targa .tga, .targa - [Open and Save]

* Tagged Image File Format .tif, .tiff - [Open and Save]

* Wireless Bitmap .wbmp - [Open and Save]

* Windows Metafile .wmf - [Open and Save]

* X11 Bitmap Format .xbm - [Open]

* X11 Pixmap Format .xpm - [Open and Save]


Review:

Some people have a constant need of resizing their pictures , now i am not of those people but if you are then i suggest you use multiple image resizer .NET. Like the name says it will resize your pictures but its capable of doing so much more like crop; rotate; flip; add text; add borders and add images, all of these processing options can be carried out together with a batch of images which makes this program very versatile in my opinion. If there is a downsize to all of the awesomeness (Is that even a word?) found in this package then it must be the time it takes to start when you run multiple it, its only a few seconds but i could notice it in my system which is kinda disappointing...anyway this is still a great program that could come in handy to all of you photographers or other people in need of image manipulation. Available for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.multipleimageresizer.net/

PhotoFiltre is an image editor with a large amount of image effects

Overview:

PhotoFiltre is a complete image retouching program. It allows you to do simple or advanced adjustments to an image and apply a vast range of filters on it. It is simple and intuitive to use, and has an easy learning curve. The toolbar, giving you access to the standard filters with just a few clicks, gives PhotoFiltre a robust look.


Features:

*Image browser

*Plug-in management

*Scanning of images using a TWAIN compatible device scanner, webcam, photocamera

*Transparency management for GIF images and exporting them to icons 16, 256 or 16 millions of colors

*Advanced text effects rotation, shading, bevel

*Several types of contours and textures

*Blending and assembling of images


Review:

Editing pictures can be a complicated process that requires some work, thankfully this can be made easier by using photofiltre. This program is an image editor with a simple but effective user interface that can be used to apply a variety of filters and effects like making a picture look like it was taken a century ago for example, you can get even more effects by downloading the plugins available in the official site. In addition to the editing there is a nice batch processor that will allow you to apply various effects to several pictures at the same time. Unfortunately this program doesn´t support layers like photoshop which is disappointing, hopefully this will be added in a future version.
In conclusion if you want a simple image editor with a bunch of image effects then i suggest you use photofiltre. Available for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP.


Get it at http://photofiltre.free.fr/frames_en.htm

Merge lots of PDFs into a single file with PDFMerge

Overview:

PdfMerge was written to fill the need for producing large PDF documents from multiple sources in an automated way.


Features:

• Allows the split and merge process to be driven from a list file
• Allows the creation of bookmark trees by specifying bookmarks to be added (bookmarks are also called outlines)
• Allows the import of bookmarks from the merged documents.
• Supports merging of large documents quickly
• Allows population of document title fields

Review:

If for some reason you need to be able to merge several PDFs together then PDFMerge is just what you are looking for. like the name says you can take any number of PDF documents and merge them into a single file. you can select the pages and bookmarks that will be merged which is very useful in keeping control of the output. Unfortunately it appears that this program can't merge password protected files which is a shame but i guess its understandable. PDFMerge is a great program for the merging of PDF files that just works. Available for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfmerge/

Automatically change your wallpaper with WallPaper Master

Overview:

Wallpaper Master is a powerful and highly customizable desktop wallpaper manager and cycler.

It will automatically change your background wallpaper with a huge range of options, and is great for indexing large collections of personal photos or any kind of image.

You can create your own categories using images on your computer, and it will cycle through your images automatically in whatever order you specify: in a shuffle mode, listed order, or based on your personal ratings. The program also has auto-size options to make sure your images are displayed with optimal size.


Features:

• Store multiple wallpaper lists as different categories/libraries - up to 5000 images per category!
• The ability to rate wallpaper, so better wallpapers are chosen more often.
• Customizable Global Hotkeys - Quickly change/clear the wallpaper with any key combo.
• Very high quality resizing of images to fit the screen optimally and keep their aspect ratio.
• Auto change the wallpaper when windows starts, every x minutes, or use the ratings to choose an interval.
• Change wallpaper in order, in shuffle mode, or randomly according to rating.
• Analyse the wallpaper and automatically choose between Resize, Tile, Center or Stretch.
• Uses very little resources.
• Minimises to tray area for easy access.
• Easy to use but powerful interface.
• Desktop Wallpaper Master is a free download (freeware)!
• And more!

Review:

Looking always at the same old desktop wallpaper can get boring very fast. WallPaper master fixes this problem with lots of options. with this program you can select up to 5000 pictures per category and automatically choose one of them as your wallpaper,you can do this by random order or by ratings which is handy in making your favorite wallpapers show up more frequently.
WallPaper Master has a lot of features but the most useful is the "auto resize wallpaper" that will shrink a picture to make it fit into the screen if its too big or tile it if it is too small. This program uses between 10 to 11MB of RAM in my system which is a little high for my taste.Unfortunately WallPaper Master only supports JPG and GIF files which is a pretty small selection. also it doesn't support vista which is a shame for some of you and the development has stopped in favor of the Pro version. still this is a good wallpaper changer with some neat features. Available for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP.


Get it at http://jamesgart.com/wallpaperchanger/

Reduce the size of attached pictures without losing too much quality using Shrink Pic

Overview:

Today's high resolution digital cameras produce multi Megabyte photos. These are great for printing but cause a heavy burden when sending over the Internet.

Shrink Pic allows you to send dozens of photos as email attachments - quickly and with no effort at all!

All you need to do is install Shrink Pic. It automatically detects when you're sending large photo files and compresses them in the background.

There's no setup, no operating instructions, nothing, nada. Just send your photos normally and Shrink Pic takes care of shrinking them.


Review:

If you have a slow internet connection sending large pictures to someone can be a pain in the ass since uploading big pictures can take awhile. But thanks to Shrink Pic this problem can be solved very easily. This program will automatically compress the size of a picture when you try to attach it to an email, blog post or when sending it trough MSN messenger. The original picture remains untouched of course since Shrink Pic makes a temporary copy of the original pic. You can select from various compression levels but the one that worked for me the most was the "medium" setting that while it reduced the size and quality of the picture a little it still managed to keep the look of the picture while reducing the size aggressively as you can see in the screenshot above. Shrink Pic only uses between 5 to 6Mb in my system which is great considering that you will probably want to keep on the system tray at all times, also you can make a portable installation from the settings menu that you will allow you to launch Shrink Pic directly from the pendrive making this a very handy tool to carry around. Shrink Pic is just great for those of you that constantly send large pictures to other people and want to keep the attachments light. Available for Windows 2000/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.onthegosoft.com/shrink_pic.htm

Create a PDF with only images using Graphics2PDF

Overview:

Free PDF file creator. Convert your images to PDF document. Supported formats: BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF.

Drag'n'drop your image files into Graphics2PDF, then click "Save as PDF". That's it.

Review:

If for some reason you need to put only images into a PDF then Graphics2PDF is just the program for the task at hand. Simply drag and drop the images that you desire inside Graphics2PDF's window and rearrange them using the arrows located below them. Then simply click" save as pdf" to get your PDF document with the images you selected. Graphics2PDF is very easy to use and just works as it should so if you are ever in the need for making a PDF full of images then Graphics2PDF is what you are looking for.

Get it at http://www.imposant.com/products/image2pdf.htm

UpdateStar will find updates for your installed programs

Overview:

UpdateStar is free software that lets you stay up-to-date with the personal software installations on your computer. It eases your life as a software user and makes sure you always have the most up-to-date software versions. UpdateStar covers all of your freeware, shareware, demos, commercial software, and includes special offers.


Review:

Going to a program's website to check if there is a new version can be a bother, specially if you have a large quantity of software installed in your machine. Thankfully with UpdateStar you can solve this. UpdateStar will search for all the paid and free software currently installed in your computer and will let you know if there are any updates available, if there are you can quickly go to the program's page and download the new version. In my computer UpdateStar managed to recognize most of my installed software and most of the current updates available too which is great. Of course there was some instances in which UpdateStar didn't know about a certain program or the latest update wasn't listed and this is where you can help if you have some free time. You see UpdateStar relies heavily on user contributions for information about programs and updates, so if you have some free time help fill information about your favorite programs in the UpdateStar website. You can keep UpdateStar running on the system tray so that it can look for software updates daily,weekly or monthly. Also it can work as basic program uninstaller which is a little handy if you ask me.
UpdateStar works well most of the time and is easy to use, tough i had some problems with the system tray icon not showing up. Maybe it's because i have too many system tray icons, anyway UpdateStar still worked well regardless. Available for Windows 2000/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.updatestar.com/

Backup and restore your Windows drivers using Double Driver

Overview:

With Double Driver you can view which drivers are installed in your system and you can backup the drivers you choose, save and print the drivers list, and more.


Features:

• View installed drivers
• Backup drivers
• Restore drivers
• Save drivers list
• Print drivers list

Review:

Double Driver is a program for the backup and restoring of Windows drivers. To backup a driver just do a scan and either select all the results or using the "provider" option you can quickly choose important drivers for Windows, video card, printers, Etc. Double Driver is pretty fast and is very easy to use. Available for Windows 2000/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.boozet.org/dd.htm

JkDefrag is a simple but powerful hard drive defragmenter

Overview:

JkDefrag is a disk defragmenter and optimizer for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/2008/X64. Completely automatic and very easy to use, fast, low overhead, with several optimization strategies, and can handle floppies, USB disks, memory sticks, and anything else that looks like a disk to Windows. Included are a Windows version, a commandline version (for scheduling by the task scheduler or for use from administrator scripts), a screensaver version, a DLL library (for use from programming languages), versions for Windows X64, and the complete sources.


Review:

JkDefrag is a lightweight defragmenter that focuses on speed and simplicity. Jkdefrag by default will analize, defragment and optimize all the mountable hard drives that it can find, it does all of this without any user input which is handy if you want a fully automated process. Of course you can make some adjustments by using command line options that will allow you for example to defrag a specific hard drive or folder. In conclusion Jkdefrag is a fast, simple and just great defragmenter, tough having to use the command line to access extra options may prove too hard for newbie users. Available for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/

Print files into PDFs with DoPDF

Overview:

doPDF is a free PDF converter for both personal and commercial use. Using doPDF you can create PDF files by selecting the "Print" command from virtually any application. With one click you can convert your Microsoft Excel, Word or PowerPoint documents or your emails and favorite web sites to PDF files.


Review:

doPDF is a simple utility that will install a virtual PDF printer in Windows allowing to pretty much print any file into the PDF format. Using doPDF is extremely easy since all you have to do is to open a file and select "print..." from the file menu and print the file using the doPDF virtual printer. doPDF justs works so get it if you need it. Available for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.dopdf.com/

FairStars CD Ripper is a simple but effective CD ripper

Overview:

FairStars CD Ripper is a free powerful software for ripping audio CD tracks to WMA, MP3, OGG, VQF, FLAC, APE and WAV formats files on-the-fly. Free CDDB is supported(Querying & Submiting). It supports normalization when ripping, and also support ID3 tag. FairStars CD Ripper also supports playback with its built-in player.


Features:

• Rips CD to WMA, MP3, OGG, VQF, FLAC, APE and WAV on-the-fly.
• Supports automatic volume adjustment(normalization) during ripping.
• Supports multiple CD/DVD drivers.
• ID3 tag support.
• Support automatic saving ID3 Tags when converting, and also support ID3 tags display and edit.
• Query and submit CD disc information from/to the freedb(the Internet Compact Disc Database).
• Audio Playback control function Support.
• Easy-to-use user-friendly interface(skin support).

Review:

I had to rip a CD recently and the programs that i tried were not up to the task for several reasons. Either i had to download a library or the interface was too complicated so i made the decision to look for something more efficient and after a while i came across FairStars CD Ripper. This program comes with all the required libraries for ripping tracks into the most common formats and has a simple interface. All you have to do is to introduce your music CD, select a destination folder, output type and click extract. ID3 tag support, volume adjustment and querying CD information from the freedb database to fill out missing details are among the other features that FairStars CD Ripper has. As you can see FairStars CD Ripper is fully featured and should suffice most standards need like the one that i had. Available for Windows 2000/XP/XP MCE/2003/Vista/2008.


Get it at http://www.fairstars.com/cdripper/index.htm

FileHippo.com Update Checker can let you know if your programs have updates available

Overview:

The Update Checker will scan your computer for installed software, check the versions and then send this information to FileHippo.com to see if there are any newer releases. These are then neatly displayed in your browser for you to download.


Review:

FileHippo.com is a great place to find free programs (some of the programs featured in this blog have come from there) so if you have programs that you download from there then FileHippo.com Update Checker is a pretty good way to keep them up to date. Just download the installer or the portable version and run it so that it can check your installed programs, a browser window will be opened with direct links to download the newest versions of your software. Unfortunately FileHippo.com Update Checker can only check programs that are added to the website so if you have programs that are not there you are out of luck. You could try Updatestar tough which is another software update utility with a larger software database but it's not portable.
In conclusion if you only have programs that are on the FileHippo.com website then this update checker is a good way to keep them up to date. Available for Windows 98/ME/2004/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker/

Diagram Designer is a powerful tool for creating flowcharts and other types of diagrams

Overview:

Simple vector graphics editor for creating flowcharts, UML class diagrams, illustrations and slide shows.


Features:

• Customizable template object palette.
• Spellchecker (see below about dictionaries).
• Import/export WMF, EMF, BMP, JPEG, PNG, MNG, ICO, GIF and PCX images.
• Slide show viewer.
• Simple graph plotter to plot mathematical expressions.
• Advanced "pocket" calculator with equation solver.
• MeeSoft Image Analyzer integration for bitmap image editing and extended file format support.
• Uses compressed file format for minimizing drawing file size.

Review:

Diagram Designer is an amazing open source program for creating diagrams. You can easily create flowcharts, UML class diagrams, illustrations and slide shows using a simple drag and drop interface. You can customize your diagrams with all sorts of colors and text formatting codes which makes Diagram Designer very powerful. You can optionally download dictionaries for spellchecking , use a simple calculator for advanced operations and export files into several types of image files, Oh and did i mention Diagram Designer is fully portable? In conclusion Diagram Designer should be the program that you use whenever you are making some diagrams. Available for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista.

Get it at http://logicnet.dk/DiagramDesigner/

Benchmark your applications with AppTimer

Overview:

AppTimer will run an executable a number of times and time how long it takes for the application to reach a state where user input is being accepted before exiting the application.

After each run of the application AppTimer will attempt to close the application in an automated fashion while logging the time measurements to a log file.

It's main use is in benchmarking an application's startup time.


Review:

Have you ever wondered how much time a program takes to launch? if the answer if yes then you may be interested in AppTimer. With this lightweight and portable program you can launch applications to time their startup time and put the results into a text file. You can choose how many program executions and delay between launches you would like. The window detection method and the window close method are important because is the way Apptimer detects a windows and closes it respectively, i would pay special attention to the window close method since some programs don't like to be closed a certain way which is something that i experienced.
AppTimer worked pretty well and should suffice people that need an app like it. Available for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista.


Get it at http://www.passmark.com/products/apptimer.htm