Very Good Free Antivirus Software - AVG

You can download the latest version from here >> AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition <<

Today I am going to introduce you a very reliable free antivirus software which I am using since 4 years on my home PC’s. AVG antivirus is a good option for any other purchased antivirus software.

AVG antivirus free edition is easy to use and will not slow your system down because of the low system resource requirements. AVG includes automatic update functionality, a powerful function AVG Resident Shield, which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run, free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product, and AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files.

It is available free of charge to home users for the life of the product. Rapid virus database updates are also available for the lifetime of the product, which makes the AVG a very popular antivirus program over the globe.

OpenOffice.org Suite – A free alternate for Microsoft Office Suite

Download from HERE. (Size: 127 MB)

Here is an absolutely free Office Suite Program "OpenOffice.org" which is more powerful than any expensive MS Office Suite. The Suite is free for any environment. You can run it on any platform i.e. Microsoft Windows, Linux, Solaris, BSD, OpenVMS, OS/2 or IRIX. Download for your office or home and save a lot of money.

Since last three months I am using this office suite on machines running on Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 and Windows XP Professional SP3. The Suite is an excellent replacement for expensive Microsoft Office Suites.

Designed by Sun Microsystems OpenOffice.org (OO.o or OOo) is an office application suite available for a number of different computer operating systems. It supports the ISO standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) for data interchange as its default file format, as well as Microsoft Office '97-2003 formats, among many others. So you can open or create MS Word, MS Excel, and MS Power Point or MS Access program in this powerful free office suite.

The aim of the project is "To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format."

OpenOffice.org aims to compete with Microsoft Office and emulate its look and feel where suitable. It can read and write most of the file formats found in Microsoft Office, and many other applications; an essential feature of the suite for many users.

OpenOffice.org has been found to be able to open files of older versions of Microsoft Office and damaged files that newer versions of Microsoft Office itself cannot open. However, it cannot open older Word for Macintosh (MCW) files.

Platforms
Platforms for which OO.o is available include Microsoft Windows, Linux, Solaris, BSD, OpenVMS, OS/2 and IRIX. The current primary development platforms are Microsoft Windows, Linux and Solaris.

A port for Mac OS X exists for OS X machines which have the X Window System component installed. A port to OS X's native Aqua user interface is in progress, and is scheduled for completion for the 3.0 milestone. NeoOffice is an independent fork of OpenOffice, specially adapted for Mac OS X.

Components
OpenOffice.org is a collection of applications that work together closely to provide the features expected from a modern office suite. Many of the components are designed to mirror those available in Microsoft Office. The components available include:

Writer: A word processor similar in look and feel to Microsoft Word and offering a comparable range of functions and tools. It also includes the ability to export Portable Document Format (PDF) files with no additional software, and can also function as a WYSIWYG editor for creating and editing web pages.

Calc: A spreadsheet similar to Microsoft Excel with a roughly equivalent range of features. Calc provides a number of features not present in Excel, including a system which automatically defines series for graphing, based on the layout of the user’s data. Calc is also capable of writing spreadsheets directly as a PDF file.

Impress: A presentation program similar to Microsoft PowerPoint. It can export presentations to Adobe Flash (SWF) files allowing them to be played on any computer with the Flash player installed. It also includes the ability to create PDF files, and the ability to read Microsoft PowerPoint's .ppt format. Impress suffers from a lack of ready-made presentation designs. However, templates are readily available on the Internet.

Base: A database program similar to Microsoft Access. Base allows the creation and manipulation of databases, and the building of forms and reports to provide easy access to data for end-users. As with Access, Base may be used as a front-end to a number of different database systems, including Access databases (JET), ODBC data sources and MySQL/PostgreSQL. Base became part of the suite starting with version 2.0. Native to the OpenOffice.org suite is an adaptation of HSQL. While ooBase can be a front-end for any of the databases listed, there is no need for any of them to be installed.

Draw: A vector graphics editor comparable in features to early versions of CorelDRAW. It features versatile "connectors" between shapes, which are available in a range of line styles and facilitate building drawings such as flowcharts. It has similar features to Desktop publishing software such as Scribus and Microsoft Publisher.

Math: A tool for creating and editing mathematical formulae, similar to Microsoft Equation Editor. Formulae can be embedded inside other OpenOffice.org documents, such as those created by Writer. It supports multiple fonts and can export to PDF.

QuickStarter
A small program for Windows and Linux that runs when the computer starts for the first time. It loads the core files and libraries for OpenOffice.org during computer startup and allows the suite applications to start more quickly when selected later.

Click here to Know More

Download from HERE and enjoy it!!!

Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP

Today I am going to introduce you a few very useful little tools for Windows XP, these tools are collectively known as "Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP".

Microsoft PowerToys is a set of programs provided by Microsoft for the Windows operating system. PowerToys are not integrated into Windows since they are released after the public release of a Windows operating system.

The list is here:

Color Control Panel Applet
Professional-level photographers and designers know that getting consistent, accurate color from file to screen to print and beyond is a requirement for great results. This new tool helps you manage Windows color settings in one place.

SyncToy
With new sources of files coming from every direction (such as digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops), SyncToy can help you copy, move, and synchronize different directories.

RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer
Are you a serious photographer? Now you can organize and work with digital RAW files in Windows Explorer (much as you can with JPEG images). This tool provides thumbnails, previews, printing, and metadata display for RAW images.

ClearType Tuner
This PowerToy lets you use ClearType technology to make it easier to read text on your screen, and installs in the Control Panel for easy access.

HTML Slide Show Wizard
This wizard helps you create an HTML slide show of your digital pictures, ready to place on your Web site.

Open Command Window Here
This PowerToy adds an "Open Command Window Here" context menu option on file system folders, giving you a quick way to open a command window (cmd.exe) pointing at the selected folder.

Alt-Tab Replacement
With this PowerToy, in addition to seeing the icon of the application window you are switching to, you will also see a preview of the page. This helps particularly when multiple sessions of an application are open.

Tweak UI
This one is very useful. This PowerToy gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface, including mouse settings, Explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more.
Version 2.10 requires Windows XP Service Pack 1 or Windows Server 2003.

Power Calculator
With this PowerToy you can graph and evaluate functions as well as perform many different types of conversions.

Image Resizer
This PowerToy enables you to resize one or many image files with a right-click.

CD Slide Show Generator
With this PowerToy you can view images burned to a CD as a slide show. The Generator works downlevel on Windows 9x machines as well.

Virtual Desktop Manager
Manage up to four desktops from the Windows taskbar with this PowerToy.

Taskbar Magnifier
Use this PowerToy to magnify part of the screen from the taskbar.

Webcam Timershot
This PowerToy lets you take pictures at specified time intervals from a Webcam connected to your computer and save them to a location that you designate.

You can download these little Gems from HERE, absolutely free!!!

µTorrent - A Very Useful Freeware

µTorrent is a BitTorrent client. There are many on the market today, and most of them are free to use. What makes uTorrent special is the small amount of memory and CPU time that the application uses. For me that was the main problem while choosing a BitTorrent client to suit my needs. I'm running several applications simultaneously on my computer, and I want to leave my torrents running while I do my work. uTorrent allowed me to do just that.

The program also provides various statistics and options for your torrents (local peer dicovery - very useful to get high speeds while connecting to peers in your geographic area, set maximum upload and download speed for each running torrent, upload and download speed charts for every torrent). I've been using uTorrent for about three years now, after trying BitComet and Azureus. I chose uTorrent for the reasons explained above.

The software has reached version 1.77 stable. In those three years uTorrent has crashed about 3 or 4 times, so it was highly reliable for me. Download from here.

Free Memory Optimizer - SweepRAM

Programs need more and more memory, so you will end up with the system working with some difficulty or even not at all. There are a lot of memory optimizers out there, but this little free one is very useful.

SweepRAM is a freeware application that will try to free some unused RAM in just a few seconds. Let's see how it works.The application doesn't need to be installed, you have a little executable file that will do all the work. I'm testing the tool with the "zHotkey.exe" process; that's the process that allows me to use the hot keys on my keyboard. The tool uses 3.700 Kb of memory, and that seems a little bit too much.

Well, that's very nice! Basically the creator of this little freeware application says that you can run SweepRAM after you’ve turned your computer on, and started all applications that will be running all day long (antivirus, notes software, all residents you may have, etc) the first thing you do, before actually starting to work, is to run SweepRAM. That way, all running applications will reduce their memory use to the required amount, giving use as much RAM available for your work as possible. You don’t need to run it all the time, it’s actually not recommended to, because if you are working on something, chances are whatever application you’re using is using memory so that it can work as fast as possible.

This is a very handy little tool, and I must say I'm really using it every morning before starting to work with my applications. You can download the little gem from here, it's free!