Download Full Version Linux Mint 7

I wanted to do this for a few months now but I never found a few quiet hours for it… I finally installed Linux Mint 7 on my PC, alongside with Windows XP for now. I gave Ubuntu a try last year but I gave up on it because of the many difficulties with the hardware. What happened with Ubuntu is that I barely made the sound to work after long hours of trying and I just couldn’t make it to properly recognize my wide screen display, never. That’s why, although I liked its looks and functionality, I decided to give up on it.
Somebody recommended Linux Mint here, it was Dusan if I remember correctly, and now I finally had the chance to install it. I chose the latest release, Linux Mint 7 Gloria.  I went for the “install inside Windows” option for now and I guess it’s the best way to go for a Windows user that just wants to explore the Linux Mint option without getting too complicated. This menu will appear if you insert your Linux Mint CD while running Windows and you’ll get to install it like any other program.


Well, not quite like any other program though. You will have to reboot to complete the installation and then when you will start your computer you will be asked which operating system you want to use for that session, Windows or Linux Mint.

The whole process shouldn’t take more than 15 to 20 minutes to complete. After that you’ll have the possibility to explore Linux Mint and trust me, it’s quite appealing. The first thing that I checked when I first started Linux Mint was the sound. And guess what? It worked! I set up the network connection with no difficulty and even the display problem that I had in Ubuntu was solved in a couple of minutes! With everything up and running I just had to relax and enjoy Linux Mint. It looks great, it’s fast and the functionality is marvelous once you get used to the differences between Linux Mint and Windows.

The Control Center is just what the Windows Control Panel should be, a great interface to your system properties and controls. There are several programs that are pre-installed, like Firefox or Gimp, but you can always add new free programs easily.


I am very impressed with Linux Mint, very impressed. The looks are awesome and you’ll have no trouble in getting all your hardware to work, at least I had none of that. The only thing that keeps me from uninstalling Windows XP right now is that I have some Windows programs that I really need for my work and those programs don’t work under Linux yet. When they will work I guess I’ll have no regrets, I’ll switch to Linux Mint right away. For now I’m going to keep both operating systems, so I’ll have a dual boot PC, but I’m going to use Linux Mint for my day-to-day tasks like surfing the web or writing and keep Windows just for the special tasks that require special programs.
I strongly encourage you to try Linux Mint, it’s open source, completely free of charge, and from what I see a way better operating system than Windows – faster, more secure and great looking without requiring huge memory resources. You can download it from the link below, than make yourselves a bootable CD and go!

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Download Full Version Sumatra PDF

 Sumatra PDF

Features Overview

• Small, simple and fast.
• It is intended to be a fully portable program.
• Light memory footprint.

Review
Sumatra PDF is a tiny open source PDF viewer, fast, portable and with a small memory footprint. I guess most of you are looking to replace the Adobe PDF Reader with a free program that wouldn’t take forever to load a document. Well, you can’t even compare Sumatra PDF’s speed with Adobe Reader’s speed, the open source program is way faster and that’s a big plus. Even compared with the fastest freeware PDF readers like Foxit or PDF X-Change Reader Sumatra PDF is still having a slight advantage, it seems to be a bit faster than those two.

The big difference is that Sumatra PDF does not offer any additional features, you can just display the document, search within that document and… that’s about it. In fact, the program options fit in a very small window

Most people don’t need too many options and features from a PDF viewer anyway, so the bottom line is that Sumatra PDF is free and fast.

The program has a minimalistic design, the whole concept behind this open source PDF viewer is simplicity and speed. The program was designed for portable use, the whole thing is just one file with no external dependencies. You can easily run it from an USB disk or install it in your Windows PC, it won’t take more than 2 seconds to setup.

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Download Full Version Gridy

 Gridy

Features Overview

• Adds an invisible grid to Windows and any window you move or resize is snapped to that grid.
• Can make a window semi-transparent.
• Can minimize all windows but the active one.

Review
Gridy is a tiny freeware utility that can add an invisible grid on your Windows desktop and snap any window that you move or resize to that grid. I’d call it a freeware program for order and symmetry maniacs, and some people argue that I’m one of those myself. I like my windows to be arranged nicely on my desktop, so Gridy might provide great help in doing that. You won’t have much to do after installing the program.  For example, while a window is active, press and hold the Win key and press the arrow keys to move the window in fixed intervals. The snapping effect can also be achieved by simply moving or resizing that window. If you double click the tray icon the help screen will pop up with the various available actions and shortcut keys.

If you right click the tray icon you can modify some of the parameters of the program, make windows transparent and some other actions.

You can also use Gridy to close all the windows except the active one, resize a window to a predefined size or set a window to be always on top.

Version Tested
0.42

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Download Full Version GoOo

 GoOo

Features Overview

• Faster than OpenOffice.org
• Good functionality in a nice user interface
• Can import Microsoft Works files and Word Perfect graphics.

Review
GoOo is a free open source office suite, providing all the functionality that Microsoft Office does, but for free! GoOo is based on the OpenOffice.org source code but it claims to be a lot faster. There are also a few other additional features in GoOo compared to OpenOffice.org. When Harmon recommended GoOo to me he said something like this: “It’s OpenOffice on steroids”
I’ve been using OpenOffice.org for more than a year now, since I threw away my Microsoft Office and decided to go on a “freeware mission“. I’m very satisfied with the way this freeware office suite worked for me, I had no trouble at all with it and grew to like it a lot pretty fast. The only problem that still persisted even in the newer versions was the very slow first-time startup. When I found out about GoOo I had to give it a try and see if it really is faster than OpenOffice.

With the timer in my hand I opened the same document in OpenOffice and in GoOo and the result was amazing. In fact, I didn’t need a timer to notice that, GoOo is two times faster than OpenOffice.org at the first-time startup and even faster if you compare the “second start”. They also made a few nice tweaks to the graphical user interface, it looks nicer overall.

The people that made GoOo also improved the way it handles Microsoft Works files, Word Perfect graphics and Excel macros.

The best thing is that GoOo is very open to improvements, anybody with coding knowledge can get in and get his ideas implemented quickly. You will have no trouble at all in switching from OpenOffice.org to GoOo because the functionality is almost identical except the few additional features that GoOo has.

Version Tested
3.1 – 10

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Download Full Version UNetbootin

 UNetbootin

Features Overview

• Allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a variety of Linux distributions
• Works both from Windows and Linux
• Can also be used to load various system utilities like partition managers or system repair tools.

Review
UNetbootin is a small freeware utility that allows you to create bootable USB drives for a wide range of Linux distributions. I decided to install and test Linux Mint on my PC and I didn’t want to create a bootable CD, it’s much easier and comfortable to use and USB disk for that purpose. Although UNetbootin supports dozens of Linux distributions and versions it still does not support the latest version of Linux Mint. That was not a big problem though, I downloaded the .iso file and loaded it into the program easily.

The USB disk that I inserted was recognized automatically by the program, so everything was ready to go.

It took less than five minutes to create the bootable USB disk and it was extremely easy, I just had to make a few clicks and wait.

You can also use this freeware program to run several system utilities from an USB disk, partition managers or system recovery tools.

Version Tested
3.5.7

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Download Full Version Find And Run Robot

 

Find And Run Robot

Features Overview

• Easy to use, no configuration needed to run.
• Extremely customizable.
• Lightweight and fully portable.
• Dozens of skins and plugins available.

Review
I was using Launchy to find an easy way to launch programs in my very crowded computer. I had no problems with it so far, maybe just the lack of more customization options was a bit annoying. Many of you recommended another freeware alternative, Find And Run Robot (FARR), a program made by Mouser from DonationCoder.com. I had it on my “to be tested list” for quite some time now and yesterday I finally decided to give it a try. The first thing that I thought of was the memory footprint, so I started both Launchy and FARR and compared the memory usage. As you can see from the picture below FARR is way lighter than Launchy, only around 3.5 megs needed while running in the background.

Next I tried to see how fast it is, and believe me, it’s pretty fast! And the searches might get faster and faster because it caches programs you launch for instantaneous repeat searches and adaptive scoring. The program is described as the “ultimate program for keyboard maniacs” and as one of these maniacs I tend to agree with that description. You just have to press a key (pause/break is the default one) to display the FARR window, then just type the first letters of the program you want to run and the results appear right away. Then hit enter to launch the top result and that’s it. But wait, there’s more! FARR also allows you to run web searches, send email, manipulate files or control on-screen windows.

Last but not least this is one of the most customizable pieces of software I’ve ever seen. You can change the hotkeys, fonts, just about anything related to the program. You might be able to change the world too if you try hard enough

The program author posted a very nice list of the unique features in Find And Run Robot, you can read it here. There is also a great community around the program and several plugins and skins that were created to enhance this freeware gem.

Version Tested
2.75.01

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Download Full Version Unstoppable Copier

Unstoppable Copier

Have you ever lost important information which was stored in a CD or hard disk and now you can’t have it again? If you need to get back your data from your scratched CDs, damaged disks or defective floppy/hard disks, you need a piece of freeware like this: Unstoppable Copier.
How does Unstoppable Copier work? Normally when your computer is unable to copy a file from a damaged disk it will abort and delete the portion of the file it has copied, but Unstoppable Copier will continue copying the file right to the end.


You will be able to decide the recovering level, and, if you wish, select a starting folder and the program will copy all data from it and any sub folders it may contain.
You can use Unstoppable copier for many purposes, not only for recovering data. You can also use it to copy data from a folder to other, from a device to another.

Features overview

• Recovers files from disks with physical damage.
• Can be used as a daily backup system using its batch mode functions.
• Supports command line parameters which allow the application to be run from schedulers or scripts so it can be fully integrated into daily server tasks.
• Available for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Linux.

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Download Full Version FileMenu Tools

 FileMenu Tools

Features Overview

• Several built-in utilities like extended delete or synchronize folders.
• Enable or disable commands which are added by other applications to the context menu.
• Customize the “Send to…” submenu.
• Can add commands which run external programs in the context menu.

Review
I was using MmmFree to customize the Windows Explorer context menu but since several readers recommended FileMenu Tools as a much better free program for that purpose I finally decided to give it a try. FileMenu Tools is basically a freeware program that allows you to customize the Windows Explorer context menu while adding several features to it. That’s right, it not only gives you the power change the existing entries but it adds a whole bunch of interesting features. If you take a look at the screenshot below you can see which are these features, I’m just going to name a few of the most interesting ones: split or join files, synchronize folders, advanced delete, shred files, duplicate files, pack to folder.

You can keep just the features that you like and need and that’s a big plus. As mentioned before you can also enable or disable the commands that were added to the context menu by other programs. You can do that easily with FileMenu Tools, just a few clicks and the context menu will look just the way you want it.

Last but not least you can add commands which can run any installed program of your choice.

The only thing that I found annoying about this program is that you can’t access the menu by right clicking on any of the entries, you have to use the toolbar buttons or the menu once you select an entry.

Version Tested
5.7

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Download Full Version Miranda IM

 Miranda IM

Features Overview

• Supports multiple IM protocols (AIM, IRC, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Netsend and more)
• Over 350 plugins can be added to extend its functionality
• Very light on system resources and very fast.
• Has a portable version that requires no installation.

Review
Miranda IM is a fast and lightweight open source Instant Messenger client. It supports various protocols and it’s fairly easy to use and configure. I am using Digsby and Skype to stay in touch with my friends and partners from my home computer but unfortunately I can’t use those on my PC at the office because I can’t install software on that computer. That’s why I chose to test Miranda IM, it has a portable version After downloading the program you have to set up your accounts for the protocols that you prefer. It’s quite easy, you should be able to complete the configuration in a few minutes.

Once you have set up the program you can talk to your friends, nothing complicated there. In fact, Miranda IM might shock you with its simplicity. It doesn’t even support emoticons, you can’t send files to your friends, nothing, just chat.

The program is very light indeed, it took only 8 MB of memory on my PC and that’s quite low by any standards. The good thing is that you can customize the program to suit your taste and needs, there are hundreds of plugins and addons that you can install.

Version Tested
0.8.2

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Download Full Version MediaPortal

 MediaPortal

Features Overview

• Internal support for several remote control (streamzap, MCE, redeye, winlirc, hauppauge, FireDTV)
• Supports analog TV, DVB-C, DVB-T, DVB-S and ATSC
• HDTV and AC3 support
• Timeshifting,Watch, Pause, Rewind, FF, RW Live TV
• Play any movie your PC has a codec for
• Watch your pictures/photos
• Sort your music in many ways like tracks, genre, filesize, artists, album
• Listen to your favorite radio stations (FM, DVB or internet stream)
• Show the latest weather information
• Read and send mail within MediaPortal

Review
Media Portal is an open source program that can turn your PC into an advanced multi-media center. With this program you can watch movies, TV, listen to the radio or to your music files, record TV shows or read you emails and RSS feed items. The people that made this program initially worked on the media center application for Microsoft XBox and after finishing that they created this open source program for the PC.
The program is very complex and my advice is to take some time to configure it right after finishing the installation procedure. You can add your TV tuner or DVB card so that it will be recognized by the program later on. You can also use various types of remote controls that are supported by this software.

Once you have finished the configuration you can get going, watch TV, movie files, music, you can even get the weather if you have a working internet connection.

There is almost no limit to what this program can do. The only thing that was a bit disappointing for me was that it’s quite greedy with your system resources and it tends to get sluggish and slow now and then. If you have a low end PC you might better not even try to install this, it could bring your PC to its knees faster than you think.
The program can also be enriched with the several plugins and extensions that are available on the developer’s website.

Version Tested
1.1

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Download Full Version Unlocker

Unlocker

Unlocker 1.8 is an easy to use freeware application which is designed to be a powerful tool to unlock your files and folders without interrupting the work on your computer.
The utility can come in handy if you get Windows error messages like:
-File cannot be deleted
-Access denied.
-Sharing violation occurred.
-The source or destination file may be in use.
-The file is presently being used by another program or user.
If you can’t delete or move a file just right click on it in Windows Explorer and then let Unlocker help you with the rest.


For better compatibility with all the popular Windows operating systems this tool has come up with lot of changes to increase its functionality. This tool helps the user to regain control over their computer by terminating all unwanted processes with its process explorer. Moreover it enables you to unload DLL files to regain your precious system memory and allows you to replace, move, delete or rename one or more files or folders which are in use by the system or any running processes. Other than that, the tool provides total privacy by restricting intruders to track the web sites visited by you and the activities done by you on your Windows. It also offers secrecy and concealment for visited websites and files used during a Windows session by deleting index.dat files. This user friendly application is created to give the user to work on both command line and graphical user interfaces. Find the drastic improvement with this free to use tool that makes restarting of a computer easier and quicker.

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Download Full Version XNView

 XNView

Overview
XNView is a freeware program that can be used as an image viewer or as a graphic file converter. It can open around 400 graphic file types.
Review
My favorite image viewer right now is Google’s Picasa 3 and I guess the best way to test XNView is to compare it with Picasa. Fot this purpose I chose a monster JPG file, 42 megs in size with a resolution of 13616 per 9888 pixels, a picture of my country’s map, Romania. Both programs successfully opened the file in around 10 to 15 seconds, so there were no major differences there. There was a huge difference in the memory footprint though. Picasa 3 took around 50 megs of memory in the picture editing mode while XNView was way over that figure, almost 800 MB! That’s quite a lot by any standard…

Otherwise XNView is a solid free image viewer that can handle more than 400 file formats for import and around 50 for export. It also offers a few interesting picture editing options like adding a watermark or several effects and filters.

It also offers batch convert and batch rename features and the possibility to create contact sheets easily. Overall it has a few features that Picasa 3 doesn’t have but that is not a good enough reason to replace Picasa with XNView.

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Download Full Version FavBackup

 FavBackup

The importance of web browsers has risen in the past years especially with the shift from desktop applications to web based applications. Web browsers are not just tools anymore that can display websites on a computer system, they can be used for a wide variety of services which makes it important to be prepared for disasters that can strike anytime.
FavBackup is a freeware web browser backup and restore application for the Windows operating system that supports the five popular web browsers Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari and Google Chrome. Users can use FavBackup to backup and restore web browser settings and files.
FavBackup displays a list of options and web browsers in its interface upon startup. It should be noted that this freeware program is fully portable and does not require an installation. The options include creating a backup of the selected default web browser installation, of all selected web browser installations and to restore these settings again. Only one web browser can be backed up or restored at a time. It is for example possible to backup all different versions of Firefox or Google Chrome using the safe backup option. Backing up Firefox and Internet Explorer on the other hand would require two backup runs.
The difference between the backup and safe backup option is that the former only backs up the default web browser installation while the second will backup all installations of the selected web browser. FavBackup will display a list of settings and files that can be backed up after making the selection. This includes backing up bookmarks, cookies, plugins, extensions, preferences and history among other things.


One interesting aspect of the program is that it is possible to restore less data. It is for example possible to only restore bookmarks or cookies although a full browser backup has been created during the backup phase.
There are a few things that should be improved by the developer though. The first would be to provide an option to backup multiple web browsers at once. This is more comfortable than having to start the backup software multiple times to backup all installed browsers. An option to backup portable versions of the web browsers would also come in handy. Finally support for Opera 10 has to be added so that it can be backed up as well.
FavBrowser is a free portable software program for the Windows operating system that can be used to backup and restore web browsers easily.

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Download Full Version Create Synchronicity

 Create Synchronicity

Overview
Create Synchronicity is a fast and lightweight open source program that can help you to synchronize and backup your files. It also is very easy to use.
Review
Create Synchronicity was recommended to me a few days ago by one of the readers of this blog through the contact form. After I checked the program website I became very curious to test this free software mainly because it’s open source and it promises to be lightweight and easy to use. So let’s see how it is.
You can say it’s lightweight right after downloading it, the whole package is around 200 KB! And you don’t even have to install it, just unpack the zip file to a folder of your choice and get going. You have to create a profile to start using the program.

You can set which folder you want to be synchronized and where and pick one of the three methods available, mirror, incremental and two-ways incremental. And that’s about it, you’re ready to synchronize the files and folders of your choice.

It only took me about 5 minutes from installing the program to successfully synchronizing the first folder, it’s amazingly easy to use and it does the job perfectly.

You can also specify some file types that you want to be excluded from the process (or included for that matter), and that could be useful if you want to synchronize a music folder on your PC to an mp3 player. You’ll just have to include only .mp3 files and that’s it, easy and fast.

Version Tested
1.0.0.0

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