|
HOME |
|
Calendar |
|
Join / Renew |
|
PC Alamode |
|
About Us |
|
HELP |
|
Sponsors |
|
|
|
Reviews |
|
Columns |
|
Features |
|
Theme Issues |
|
Archives |
|
Other |
|
|
March 2003
|
Tim Hoke is the Sr. Pastor at Faith Presbyterian Church, a long-time member of Alamo PC and an avid computer user who loves to try out new programs, especially shareware and freeware. He gets excited about a good deal. More than that, he enjoys sharing good deals with others. Why not send him a note about your favorite shareware or freeware programs. |
|
This month’s column features some interesting freeware and shareware
products. Please feel free to e-mail
me any of your favorites so that I can share them with other Cheez 1.0 is a powerful, yet easy to use, image cataloguing tool. It's main purpose is to facilitate photo album creation, managing and maintenance, although it can be used for handling any kind of image collection. Some of its excellent features are: One central location for all your images (Films folder). Each folder in your hard disk is represented as a film in Cheez. Thumbnails are created for every image, so browing images is fast. You can set the desired size for the thumbnails. Over 15 image formats are supported. Some of them are BMP, PNG, JPG, TIFF, TGA, GIF etc. You can enter information for every image or film (description, keywords or a date). You can search for images or films based on this information. One file is used to store the thumbnails and the information about every image, making backups really easy. Moreover this file is a simple text file in XML format, thus allowing you to manipulate it with other programs (e.g. open it with Internet Explorer). There are many ways to import images (import functions, drag and drop
from Windows, copy and refresh). You can browse folders without importing
their images to your collections. Cheez supports a simple way to send a
collection of thumbnails with their information to a friend of yours. You
can view images either with the built-in image viewer or by using any other
program installed on your computer. Two languages are supported right now
(Greek and English) with French coming soon.
GrabClipSave will save the screens to the directory you want,
either in Windows .bmp or in .jpg format. You can grab standard applications,
Direct3D or OpenGL games. GrabClipSave makes use of standard Windows features:
as soon as you press the PrtSc-key, the current screen is copied to the
clipboard. GCS just sits in the background and waits for a bitmap in the
clipboard. When there is a new one, it just saves it to disk; where You
want and the way You want. So no more Alt-Tabbing out of your favorite
game or fiddling with .tgas or stuff, just let GCS save it for you in .jpg!
Pop-Up Dictionary 4.0 is a program that can help you to translate
and memorize chosen words of many foreign languages. Just add your words,
set the time, and the program will be asking you the translations of chosen
words from the dictionary. You can also create vocabularies and dictionaries
and organize words in them, sort dictionaries by original word, translation
or transcription, view slide show, customize text fields with your own
fonts and colors and choose encodings for many languages, such as Western
European, Hebrew, Arabic etc. You can download additional dictionaries
from the site of the program. There are approximately 50 additional dictionaries
for 22 languages! You can choose either an English, Russian, German, French
or Hebrew interface for the program. It is shareware.
The Magical Jellybean Dictionary is a freeware dictionary client
for Windows 9x/ME/2000/XP. It connects to a dictionary server and retrieves
the definition from a database on the server. It can now connect to any
server via the INI file.
The Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder 1.4 is a freeware utility that
retrieves your Product Key (cd key) used to install windows from your registry.
It has the options to copy the key to clipboard, save it to a text file,
or print it for safekeeping. It works on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000,
XP, .NET, Office 97, and Office XP. This version adds support for multiple
installations of Office and the ability to change the Windows XP, 98, and
ME installation key.
DirectDVD is a full-featured digital DVD player and software
decoder for Windows that brings the most powerful DVD movie capabilities
to your PC. With DirectDVD's Software Decoder, you are able to watch all
your favorite DVD movies on multiple CPUs, regions, graphic controllers,
and DVD drives. DirectDVD includes advanced theater-quality audio such
as TruSurround XT, Dolby Digital, Dolby Headphones and it is the first
DVD player to offer Circle Surround II from SRS Labs! Unique features inside
include, DVD to MP3, proprietary de-interlacing algorithms for reduction
of motion effect on VGA monitors, and CSS software support for playback
of all your favorite movies or other encrypted content. Change the playback
view of your DVD using letterbox, pan, and crop technology. The skins package
allows the user to easily change DirectDVD's look and feel and easily take
full control with amazing realistic overlays directly inside the interface.
Update 4.48 adds SRS Surround Plug-ins, New Control Panel, Web Plug-ins
for DVD.
Millions of end users are harnessing the power of the PC to bring photos,
videos, music, multimedia and DVDs to life in the living room, on the desktop
and on the road. The next version of NVIDIA NVDVD multimedia software,
NVIDIA NVDVD 2.0, combines the ultimate video and audio playback
with advanced features and intuitive controls to enable a home theater
experience on any desktop or notebook PC. NVIDIA NVDVD is a full media
player with play-list support, enabling users to create custom playlists
of MP3 music, photo slideshows with background music, or any mixed audio
and video presentation.
|
Alamo PC Organization, Inc.
San Antonio, TX USA