If you like (a) free games, (b) games with nice, creative artwork and sound, (c) mindless blasting (or just blasting in general), and (d) all of it put together in a way that somehow just works then check out GunGirl2.
Possibly worse than a Republican takeover of congress, the world has been taken over by zombies. GunGirl takes matters into her own hands, grabs her pistol, and heads out to kick some zombie butt. This game is a platform shoot em up where your character — there’s also a guy character (GunDude?) that you could choose – traverses a varied post apocalyptic landscape laying waste to essentially everything in her path, whilst collecting powerups and weapons along the way.Continue reading »
This one for the ubergeeks, amongst which I (hopefully) count myself. HashTab is a free Windows Explorer extension that adds a new “File Hashes” tab in the right click/properties dialog that simply displays the file’s calculated hash value, in order to verify a files’s integrity and authenticity.
Another feature that your brand new Hash Tab offers: to compare the hash values of another file to the one you are looking at. HashTab supports multiple hash algorithms such as CRC32,MD5, SHA1, SHA2, RipeMD, HAVAL and Whirlpool. Windows and Mac OSX versions availableContinue reading »
Imagine the following situation: you have multiple wireless-enabled PCs or devices, a wired internet connection, and no wireless router to connect a wi-fi hotspot. Would it be possible to use the wireless adapter from your PC to create a mobile hotspot that can be used to provide all of your wireless enabled devices with an internet connection?
The answer is yes, provided that (a) your PC runs Windows 7, and (b) you install and run a free program called Virtual Router.
Aside from being completely free, this program is noteworthy in that setting up your wireless hotspot is simplicity itself.: all you need to do is run the program, provide a a name and password for your network, and you’re done. Your wi-fi hotspot will be up and running within minutes.Continue reading »
If you’ve ever wanted to measure the time you spend working on various tasks or projects then you should check out this free program.
Grindstone is a kind of to-do list with a twist. It will let you create a list of tasks and an (optional) estimated time of completion and/or a due date, as well as an hourly charge rate for calculations. But where it shines is the desktop-based tools designed to measure the exact amount of time spent on each task. The user has the ability to pause, resume or switch tasks via a small widget floating on the desktop, or to use an "egg timer" widget which can be used to keep track of chunks of time that you might to spend doing something.
The first thing I had to overcome before starting to use this program was my suspicion that it would show that I spend more time than I care to admit loafing around, procrastinating, and/or randomly surfing the internet. On the other hand I was hoping that the act of measuring itself will make me more productive or focused (and it may have worked).
I will say this: Grindstone works better than I thought it would, largely because of it’s nice implementation and a nice set of desktop-based tools.Continue reading »
Pen Drive Linux has made it easy to turn your USB drive into a Live bootable Linux instance, allowing you to easily sample a Linux flavor or create the free, open-source tool you need. The group also provides another tool called MultiBoot USB that allows you to take multiple Linux ISOs and utilities with you on a single flash drive. There are a few scenarios out there where it would be really handy to have a specific Linux tool (like GParted, Clonezilla, antivirus rescue CDs, DBaN amongst others) available and this tool allows you to fit all of those onto a single USB drive, assuming the drive can hold them all.
To use MultiBoot USB, you have to meet a few requirements. Your drive needs to be FAT32 formatted but the utility can take care of this for you. The target PC needs to be able to boot into a USB. You need to be using Windows to make your bootable drive. Then you have to download the USB Creator and the ISOs you want to include (but the tool can also download those if you don’t already have the ISOs downloaded).
Getting a new gadget is always fun but if it’s replacing an old gadget you might have questions about what to do with the old device. You might be thinking “Can I sell this old one for some cash?” or “Now, how exactly do I recycle this?”. The answer to both of those questions can be found with Gazelle.
Gazelle.com acts as a broker for your old devices, including: cell phones, laptops, MP3 Players, digital cameras, laptops, PDAs, game consoles, GPS devices, camcorders, desktops, LCD monitors, calculators, and more. Gazelle will quote you a price for the item and send you a postage-paid box to ship the device to them. After they get the chance to inspect the device they’ll pay you the quoted amount by check or PayPal or donate the money to a charity or other cause of your choice. Gazelle can also work as a fundraising tool for your school or organization.
Gazelle is able to get a second life out of about 80% of devices they receive. If a device doesn’t have any life (market value) left in it, Gazelle ensures the device is properly recycled. Even if your device doesn’t net you any money, you can still recycle it for free through Gazelle.
[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].
Do you have a lot of podcasts and/or audio books that you want to listen to but are unable to find the time? If so, this program can help.
MP3 Speed is a simple, free program that does one thing: it changes the speed of your MP3 files. There are two ways in which it can do this, however; it can change both the speed and pitch, or it can change the speed and preserve pitch. The distinction is important, as preserving the pitch means that your podcasts and audiobooks, despite being faster, will be entirely listenable/comprehensible (within a certain range of speed) without having the “chipmunk” effect that you might get if you increase both tempo and pitch.
My suggestion: try it with a couple of podcasts and see how you like it (see the text below for a suggested tempo value that can work).
You can use MP3 Speed to process podcasts, audiobooks, and other MP3 files in batch, for folders and recursively through subfolders (and choosing whether to preserve the original and where the modified files should be saved). Continue reading »
If you’re looking for a good, free desktop sticky-notes type program then give DeskNotes a try. I’ve been using this program for several weeks now, and while it doesn’t exactly introduce any new functionality or spin on the general desktop sticky notes program concept, it manages to be a highly usable and reliable program all the same.
If you happen to use Outlook you may be pleased to learn that DeskNotes can sync notes with it. But even if you don’t you will probably like DeskNotes anyway. Its list of features include: full rich text formatting for notes, archiving of notes into a (searchable) hierarchical structure, emailing of notes, timed reminders, the ability to hide notes into the system tray menu and unhide them again for desktop display, and the ability to make a note “switchable” i.e. visible in the taskbar and to Windows’ Alt+Tab switching.Continue reading »
A popular post on this blog which you might have seen compares different ways to convert PDF to Word (Doc or RTF) formats for free, with several desktop-based programs and several online services tested. One of the programs written up is AnyBizSoft’s PDF to Word converter, whose version 2.53 was being provided 100% free. Aside from delivering excellent quality conversions, what I liked about this software is that it installed a “Convert to Word” entry in the Windows explorer context menu which appears whenever you right click a PDF file.
Recently, however, I was notified by Ricky from AnyBizSoft that version 2.53 is no longer on offer, and that the newest version 3.0 of the PDF to Word converter is available as a free giveaway on their Facebook page. The only caveat? Users are requested to “like” the company on Facebook before they can access the download link and the “request free registration code” button. Note: the giveaway for the Mac version lasts until Aug 8th, while the Windows giveaway will, according to the email I got, be on offer indefinitely.Continue reading »
Sculptris is a free digital sculpting/3D modeling program that is both powerful and extremely easy to use. It provides a digital modeling experience that is very similar to creating real life models out of clay, whereupon the virtual clay simply materializes from thin air and can be quickly shaped, prodded, cut, modified, and added. In practice the effect is very pleasant; allowing your 3D creations to grow organically, on-the-fly, as the idea(s) come to you.
Sculptris is unlike other 3D modeling programs previously mentioned on this blog in that the interface is extremely easy to use and the program has a relatively small learning curve. The mouse driven sculpting works very well (see video above), and the modeling is duplicated symmetrically on the fly whereby what you are doing on one side of the object gets immediately emulated on the other (a simple yet brilliant device that is extremely helpful).
Sculptris provides a host of “materials” to choose from and, in addition to the sculpting tools it provides powerful painting/drawing/texturing tools that can be used to finesse your models once they are created.Continue reading »
Grindstone is a kind of to-do list with a twist. It will let you create a list of tasks and an (optional) estimated time of completion and/or a due date, as well as an hourly charge rate for calculations. But where it shines is the desktop-based tools designed to measure the exact amount of time spent on each task. The user has the ability to pause, resume or switch tasks via a small widget floating on the desktop, or to use an "egg timer" widget which can be used to keep track of chunks of time that you might to spend doing something.
Recent Comments