Rating: 5

Version tested: 4.0.1 build 5896-6

Description: KlipFolio is a desktop-based interactive widget engine.It is designed to be a personal dashboard that monitors any type of online information (such as news, videos, email, RSS feeds, stocks, weather, ebay auctions, etc), but also offers offline tools such as memory/cpu/folder monitoring. It features a slick, customizable user interface and supports hundreds of available widgets (called Klips).

Let me begin this review by saying that I never thought I would want to use desktop widgets. Both Yahoo widgets and Google Desktop were only briefly installed on my computer before I uninstalled them. I must confess, however, that KlipFolio’s sheer coolness factor is so seductive that I am actually considering making it a permanent fixture and using some of the widgets.

KlipFolio has an respectable range of widgets that cover all the (usual) bases and then some more. There’s the obligatory Flickr, Youtube, Google news, Google Search, and Weather widgets. And of course, digital desktop clock(s), email notifiers (for both POP3 and Webmail services), calendars, to-do lists, and desktop sticky-type notes.

But the most impressive thing about this software right off the bat is the way you can manipulate it on-screen. Not only are KlipFolio’s Klips extremely malleable but they also have a certain ’magnetic’ quality that makes them stick together. The 4 sides of the monitor also have that quality and you can easily grab your Klips and position them where you like them the most. The net effect is very slick handling and a self-organizing effect that is very satisfying. Check out the video on the KlipFolio page for a demonstration of this.

Here’s a list of some of KlipFolio’s other notable features:

• Simplicity: you can make it look exactly the way you want it; if you want something, you add it on, if not, you remove it. Sounds straightforward but this is one of the best things about this software.
• Browsing Klips: you can scroll through items within a Klip using either the middle mouse wheel, arrow keys, or side scrollbar. Expanding the Klip makes it much more easier (and enjoyable) to browse items. Your Klip will expand if you press the (+) expand button on the title bar or even if you just hover over the title bar for a few seconds.
• Content viewing: hover over the item you want and it will show in its entirety for most Klips (for some, like email messages, they will appear truncated and you will have to log onto your email service to see all). For video it will send you to the webpage for viewing.
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Rating: 5 pick

Version tested: 7.00.03.02

Description: Antivir Personal Edition Classic is a free, award-winning antivirus software. It provides scanning on demand as well as real-time protection against a wide array of malware including viruses, trojans, worms, and dialers. Antivir also offers excellent heuristic virus detection (i.e. its ability to identify yet-unknown threats). Note that Antivir does NOT offer real-time email virus scanning and detection.

This review was borne out of an email exchange with Freewaregenius reader Sinkhan, whose emails I quote below with permission.

Sinkhan: “I feel that there is some freeware that should definitely belong on your site. First of all, in your top ten picks, you list Grisoft’s AVG as your third favorite pick…. I would like to bring up AntiVir from Avira. This program is very near and dear to my heart. Although I’ve tried AVG and a close competitor that you may have heard of, Awil’s Avast!, Avira’s AntiVir Personal Edition Classic is a free program with an outstanding performance record.

At www.av-comparatives.org, an independant organization that researches anti-malware software, recent tests show that AntiVir has stellar detection rates, beating other commercial giants like Norton, McAffee, and quite substantially beating Avast! and AVG. The tests conducted were yes, done on the paid versions, but according to this part of Avira’s site, both the free and paid versions use the same engine for detecting viruses. The only features that the free version may lack is *fully* automatic updating (which however can be configured in the program to be automatic) and e-mail scanning (which I find rather unnecessary when using web-based email such as Yahoo!, G-Mail, or Hotmail).”

Me: “Thank you for your email. Indeed you’re right, there’s a lot of titles missing from my site. This is primarily a function of time, but I will say something about some of the titles you mentioned… I simply stayed away from [Antivir] because of the email scanning issue; for work, I have to use a POP3 account and I simply cannot have that vulnerability. But for anyone who only uses web services (Gmail, Hotmail) like yourself I agree it might well be the antivirus of choice.”
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Rating: 4

Version tested: 1.81

Description: LetMe Type is a small program that resides in the system tray, monitors what you type and collects information about your most frequently used words. It will then use this information to provide a little popup window after you type in 2 or 3 characters, containing a range of words to choose from that it can automatically complete for you. LetMe Type can be used within any application, or the application(s) of your choice.

Most of us are familiar with the autocomplete function when keying in a search term in Google. LetMe Type is a similar service that is available anywhere. Here’s a summary of how it works:

• The small, system-tray resident app monitors what you type and the frequency you use particular words.
• It will then provide a pop-up with numbered options (see screenshot). You can quickly select the word you want using the number keys on your keyboard.
• The downside is that LetMe Type will also learn your misspelled words as well, requiring you to manually go through the list and delete these.

This application is highly customizable: Read more »

Rating: 5

Version tested: 1.1.1

Description: Within a Deep Forest is a very good arcade adventure platform game. It is a ball-bouncing physics game set in a world inhabited by cute characters and full of puzzles as well as the clues that enable you to solve them.

The Storyline: you are a cute ball that was created out of a failed attempt by the evil Dr. Cliche to blow up the world with an “ice bomb”. Or something. Unlike your creator, you have a keen sense of ethics and a love of mankind, which is why you set out to save the universe from his second more successful attempt.

The game: most of the game is spent navigating the world of “Within a Deep Forest” while trying to figure out how to progress further towards your goal. The key to this is (a) listening to the various clues that some helpful characters will give you, and (b) attaining special powers that will be needed within certain situations. These special powers are simply new materials that you can spawn yourself into; e.g. by morphing into a metal ball you can break barriers and resist wind currents, but your speed and movement will be restricted. When morphing into a tennis ball, you can bounce extremely high, but your movement will be imprecise and somewhat random. And so on.
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Rating: 5 pick

Version tested: 1.3.015

Description: File Hamster provides real-time backup, archiving, and version tracking for files and folders. It is a memory-resident application that will monitor the folders and files that you ask it to and invisibly keep a copy whenever you change thse (such as saving or overwriting them), so that you can revert to the old version(s) if you ever need to. It also gives you the ability to create notes on-the-fly whenever you make a change.

Here’s how this program works:

• The first thing you have to do after installation is tell File Hamster which individual files and/or folder to monitor. For folders, you can tell it which file types you want monitored and/or excluded. It can also watch sub-folders recursively.
• File Hamster will now monitor these files in real time at all times. Any attempt to change or overwrite these files will prompt File Hamster to instantly make a copy of the file before allowing the change. This will result in a trail of incremental on-the-fly backups of your files that are done invisibly without any user intervention.
• File Hamster will flash a little window close to the system tray whenever it detects a change. You can use this window to quickly leave comments or notes if you need to that you can refer to later on.
• The process of making backups is remarkably fast and streamlined . This is the case even for large files that take quite a bit of time to be saved from the application that is working with them.
• All historic versions of the file can then be accessed if need be from the File Hamster main dialog (see screenshot).
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Rating: 4

Version tested: 1.0

Description: Disc Space Reporter is a small program that can provide insight on the files and folders on your hard drive that are taking up most of the physical space. It features a simple user interface that represents file/folder sizes using little bars in the detail view, as well as an overall top ranking of the largest individual files in the scanned hard drives.

Here’s what you need to know about this program:

• It is a small executable that does not need installation and has a very light footprint.
• Very fast scanning of hard drives.
• What I really like about this program is that it contains a special pane that presents you with a ranking of the top files that are taking up space across all the scanned hard drives and folder. This is simply a great idea and I am surprised that more programs in this category dont have it (as opposed to having to drill into drives and folders using bars and pie charts to identify the culprits). It will ask you at the outset the number of top files you want displayed (i.e. top 10, 20, 30, or whatever you want).
• Size is represented using little bars in the detail view. There are 2 columns that contain these bars, one representing the relative size of the file/folder within the folder that it resides in, and another one that is an absolute representation in relation to all the hard drive contents.
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Rating: 5

Version tested: 1.0.3.1 beta

Description: LiberTV is a local client software that can download or stream films, videos, and podcasts from online sources. It promises quality “high definition” videos updated daily that you can browse through by category using a well designed user interface.

I am going to use a question/answer format for this review:

Q: What is this program about? Is it another one of those ’streaming TV’ programs that promise access to hundreds of TV stations from all around the world?
A: This program seems to be a sort of video uploading/downloading service similar to YouTube, but one that uses a local client. LiberTV can stream content from online TV stations if you provide the URLs (which you can easily do with your browser). Its main function is giving access to its own library of videos and films. It is similar to the Democracy Player, but is also different in many ways.

Q: Why would I use this instead of YouTube?
A: There are 2 reasons that I can think of: The first is that, unlike your standard YouTube video, the quality of the videos on LiberTV is quite high. The second reason is the nature of content that is on offer; I got the sense that there was some careful selection involved in the repertoire of videos available. Click here, here and here for examples of some of the films that are on offer, just to get an idea of the kinds of films you can find.

Q: Where does the content come from? Is it legal?
A: My guess is that it is not legal. LiberTV apparently allows users to create an account and upload content. To quote their website “LiberTV Player aggregates it’s content from various online sources, user uploads and podcasts”. When you do upload you also have to provide substantial information on the video you are uploading. The main question I wonder about is how they guarantee the promised high video quality if everyone is uploading random content. Do they have some sort of screening process, perhaps? I’m not sure what the process may be but I will say that the content submission feels like its deliberate and centralized.
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Rating: 5

Version tested: v2.5.1 (build 106)

Description: IESpell is an Internet Explorer extension that can perform spelling checks on all text inside Internet Explorer user-input forms. Although it runs locally on your hard drive and can be used offline, it can provide instant, context-menu based word/reference lookups from online resources.

Do you create a lot of text/content straight from the browser: do you use a webmail service such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoomail? Do you have a blog that you update and work with straight from the browser? If so, IESpell can provide spelling checking functionality for everything you do online using Internet Explorer. Here are some notes on this program:

• Clean, competent user interface.
• Note that the spelling checking function works only inside IE forms. You cannot highlight and spellcheck just any block of text on any webpage, although you can use the reference lookup functions from just about anywhere (see below).
• It’s fast. Because it is local, it will be much faster than any resource that may be available online within your online application.
• Works with IE-based browsers. For these, IESpell can be used through the context menu. For Internet Explorer it can be accessed from the toolbar and file menu as well.
• You can enter custom additions to the words database. The IESpell website suggests that you use the same custom file as that for MS Office, which will enable you to access the words you previously added to the MS Office spelling checker, as well as make any additions you make with IESpell available within Office.
• You can look up a word’s meaning through the context menu on-the-fly from online resources such as Merriam Webster. You can even launch a Wikipedia search for any highlighted word by right-click ’search Wikipedia’. Oh, and you can do this anywhere on the page; you do not have to be inside a form.
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Rating: Not Rated

Version tested: 2006_11_06

Description: uBrowser is an open source, multiplatform experimental browser that renders web pages into 3D geometrical objects. It was designed primarily to integrate web content into a 3D virtual world called Second Life.

If you like this site then you’l love Freewaregenius rendered into a 3D cube (see screenshot) ;). Ubrowser is capable of opening almost any web page and wrapping it into a cube, a ball, or a wavy flag. It can then be manipulated much like any 3D object (spun around, zoomed in and out, etc.)

Beyond the novelty there’s not much practical use for this one; I’m posting it here for the sheer coolness factor!
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Rating: 5

Version tested: 1.0.9

Description: TXTCollector is a small program that can combine text files in a directory into a single file. It can read TXT, HTM, INI, INF, LOG, REG, CSV files and will give you the option to include your own custom separator between each of the combined files, as well as rows that identify the original file name. It will read files in sub folders recursively.

This is a tool which I use daily. It is so simple yet useful that I decided its about time I posted it on Freewaregenius. I imagine most people might potentially have a use for this one; consider the following scenarios.

• You download daily performance/sales/financial reports for your work in CSV or TXT formats. At the end of the month you would like a monthly report that contains both a daily view and a monthly summary view. Perhaps you do not have access to a single downloadable file for the entire month or period, or the monthly report is not offered through your reporting system, is too big to download, or is only offered as a summary report with no daily details. TXTCollector might just be the solution to your problem; just point it to the directory where you have your daily reports (make sure all the data is there with no gaps), and it will create a combined file for you in a flash.
• Say you work with a lot of log data and would like an easy way to import the data from countless files into a database or MS Excel. Put all of your logs in a folder and TXTCollector can scan all files that are of the specified type and instantly give you a single file to work with.
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