Rating: 5

Description: Elephant’s Dream purports to be the world’s computer-generated film made entirely using free/open source applications. It was made by an ad-hoc group of young animators who converged in Amsterdam and worked on the movie for 8 weeks before it was finished. Elephant’s Dream premiered on Mar 2006.

The production was done using the Blender 3D content creation software. Also used were The Gimp and Inkscape for creating some of the graphics, amongst other programs (if you use/have used Blender and would like to publish a review of this program on Freewaregenius please Email me).

The film’s production qualities are nothing short of spectacular, especially when you consider it was made by a bunch of guys using freely available software and not a fancy multimillion-dollar animation company like Pixar. On the other hand some people have criticized this film as being story-less and no more than a spectacularly animated demo; see below for a brief synopsis of the storyline as well as my own stab at an interpretation.

The storyline: An old man (Proog) guides a younger man (Emo) through some sort of dream reality, a matrix-like meta-universe or a machine or inner organic world that seems infinitely menacing and scary. Their journey together is so fraught with dangers as to leave little opportunity for reflection on the part of the hapless Emo, but lots of opportunities for fantastic animated visuals of iron-tentacles and other larger than life dangers that explode on screen in spectacular 3D animation. And yet Emo apparently grows tired of and increasingly skeptical of the dream world surrounding him. The climax comes when Emo attempts to break away from his hapless existence controlled by Proog and a flurry of activity and seemingly uncontrolled dangers look like they are beset to harm both of them. But are they? We never know, for the older Proog finally knocks Emo unconscious, an act that seems to signify the triumph of his own paranoid reality over the world of his younger companion (whose reality is only hinted at and never allowed to manifest itself).
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Rating: 5

Version tested: 1.0 build 0017

Description: PDF-XChange Viewer is a free PDF viewer and editor that offers a number of useful functions including form filling, typewriter mode (for forms that were not designed for filling), the ability to add annotations and draw shapes into your PDF, as well as the ability to leave comments and embed sticky notes into the PDF document.

Alternatives to Adobe’s free PDF reader were traditionally borne out of a need to have a lean, fast-loading PDF viewing app; PDF-XChange certainly delivers on this, but it also manages to pack a large number of useful functions. Here are some notes on this program:

As a viewer: in addition to the usual viewing tools (e.g. zooming, searching text, highlighting form feeds), PDF-XChange offers Firefox style tabbed browsing, viewing all open docs as thumbnails, and bookmarking pages. The ’pan and zoom’ tool proved to be a surprisingly practical (and pleasant) navigation aide. The side pane on the left hand margin can optionally display thumbnails of individual pages of the document (it can also display bookmarked pages). Compatible with PDF documents versions 1.0 and higher.

As an editor: this is where most of the interesting features are, as follows:

• Manipulate pages: rotate your document clockwise or counterclockwise with the press of a button (a handy way to transform your document from portrait to landscape or vice versa if you wanted to). You can also delete pages and, although I wasn’t able to do it, there is an option for cropping pages (to be implemented in a future version, perhaps?).
• Form filling: fill forms easily with the form filling tool (provided the pdf document is designed form). Works really well but provides no formatting options beyond basic text (i.e. you cannot choose bold or underlined or different sized fonts).
• Typewriter tool: gives you the ability to quickly and easily overlay text on any part of the document. Especially handy when filling out a form that is not actually a PDF form. (This function alone makes this program a cut above the rest in my opinion).
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Rating: 5

Version tested: 1.3.1

Description: Volumouse is a free memory resident program that provides easy system volume control through combinations of mouse wheel and keyboard shortcuts.

Imagine the ability to, say, press CTRL on your keyboard and use the mouse wheel to quickly increase/decrease your system’s volume. Another hotkey (ALT for example) might allow you to flick the mousewheel to quickly mute/unmute, while pressing, say, the scroll mouse button itself and then rolling it up and down might increase/decrease the external mic volume only, etc. This is precisely what Volumouse does; here are some other points of note:

• You can define up to 5 different actions that invoke mouse wheel volume controls with Volumouse.
• Aside from hotkeys, combination controls include optionally using the mouse scroll wheel while mousing over the taskbar, desktop, or titlebar.
• Volumouse can also optionally invoke scroll wheel volume controls whenever Windows Media Player or BS Player are in focus. Strangely, it does not allow you to define a custom application/media player that would do this as well.
• Trackbar: Volumouse displays a trackbar that displays a volume control slider. This is completely configurable in terms of size, location on screen, etc. (in fact configurable individually for each of the 5 actions that you can program using Volumouse).
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Rating: 5

Version tested: 1.1.1 demo

Description: Gesundheit! is a lovely little arcade/puzzle game where you play a cute little pig pitting his wits against a horde of (equally cute) invading monsters that have overrun his village.

This is a wonderfully illustrated game that looks like art and is almost more pleasurable to look at than to play; the reason it isn’t is because the gameplay aspect of the game is also done extremely well. Oh, and while I’m at it I might as well also mention the game’s wonderful soundtrack (which I am assuming is the author’s original music, as the downloadable soundtrack lists ’Gesundheit Orchestra’ as the artist).

But is it freeware? although this is labeled a ’demo’ version containing 12 playable levels, there are no other versions of the game at the time of this writing; I emailed the author and he indicated that he is slowly working on a bigger version, but does not know if he will eventually release it commercially. Here are some notes on this game.

• Aside from being a cute green pig, you also suffer from allergies that ’enable’ you to launch massive snot projectiles at will. These don’t hurt anybody but the monsters love to eat them. They deflect of walls, travel through teleporters, and can be used to press various buttons that you may encounter.
• The objective is to lure the monsters into traps that are strewn about the game environment while avoiding being captured and eaten by the monsters or stepping into te traps yourself.
• You can lure the monsters into the traps a number of ways: you can appear in their line of vision, which will compel them to immediately chase you, or you can launch a ball of snot into a place where they are able to see it, at which point they will immediately rush to grab it.
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Rating: 5

Version tested: 1.2.4

[Note: this review was written by reader Sinkhan, a connoisseur of freeware and open source programs- The Freewaregenius]

Description: The Battle for Wesnoth is a brilliantly assembled turn based strategy game that is sure to bring out the tactician within you. This open-source fantasy game is based in a fantasy world of elves and orcs, knights and sorcerers, and of sword and bow. It currently supports around 40 different languages.

This is game is in the same vein of other TBS games, especially Fire Emblem. Many of the controls, rules, and gameplay features are quite similar, but in many ways it is different. Here are some of the main features of this game:

• The player has several units and moves them around the map. The main game map is based on a hex-tile system, meaning that there are six directions of movement for any unit.
• A wide assortment of unique weapons for most of the units ranging from the ax to the spellbook.
• Character traits and attributes that affect different aspects of the unit such as movement, attack and defence, and health.
• Different classes of units, most of which can be promoted giving the units new abilities.

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Rating: 4

Version tested: 1.2.1

Description: ODIR is an add-on for Outlook that can detect duplicate items and move them to a special folder; these include contacts, appointements, tasks, notes, and emails (sent, received, and unsent). Does not work with Outlook Express.

I used this program with Outlook 2007 to scan around 18,000 emails for duplicates. Of these, approximately 10,000 were duplicates (after migrating my email from Thunderbird to Outlook, I somehow created 2 copies of 5,000 of my emails). Here are some notes on my experience with this program:

• Running the program: the installer creates an ODIR menu alongside Outlook’s original menus. Deduping begins when you select ’Remove Duplicate Items’ from this menu.
• How it works: items are considered duplicates if the following criteria are found duplicated: for contacts: first and last names, company name, and email address; for appointments: subject, location, start date, and end date; for tasks: subject, start date, due date and status; for notes: contents of the body and color; for emails/posts: internet message ID (for received email), email subject and the time sent (for sent email), and the subject alone for unsent emails.
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Rating: 5

Version tested: 3.7.2

[Note: this review was written by my friend Mohammed Raei from Amman, Jordan; see his personal blog here - The Freewaregenius]

Description: Folderico is a nice little program that allows you to change the color and individual icons of folders right from the context menu.

This is a versatile program and can be used in so many ways. For example you might denote all of your work folders with a red color to visually differentiate them from other folders, or you could change the icon of your downloads folder from a simple plain folder to one that, say, has a big green arrow on it.

This program is very similar to another program previously featured on Freewaregenius called Foldermarker. There are a number of differences between them which I will point out.

Here is what I like about this program:

• Allows the change of a folder’s icon straight from the context menu (right mouse click).
• Comes with multiple built-in themes that contain custom folder icons on various subjects (e.g. music, video, Linux, etc). A theme is the collection of icons that are automatically presented as options when you right-click on a folder; you can switch across a number of built in themes or load your own. Read more »

Rating: 4

Version tested: 2.10

Description: Pitaschio is an explorer shell extension that introduces a number of interesting functions and tweaks, including allowing small (details-view) icons on the desktop, snapping open windows to other windows, restricting windows to the visible screen area, customizing mouse shortcuts to control various window functions, and others.

Here’s a listing of my favorite Pitaschio functions:

• Small icons on the desktop: ever wondered why you cannot use small, detail-view icons withtin the desktop. With Pitaschio you can do just that (see screenshot). While the effect is definitely interesting, I tried to use small icons on my desktop for about a day and I must admit that I have doubts about their practicality. Still, definitely an interesting idea.
• Open windows snap together: i.e. the edges of open windows behave as if they were magnetic. Quite a nice effect, really.
• Windows forced to stay within the visible screen area: 100% of any window will be visible at all times.
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Rating: 5

Version tested: 2.187

Description: Autostitch can automatically join multiple consecutive images together to create a single, panoramic view. It does this automatically without user involvement or intervention.

In order to evaluate this program I took 46 snapshots constituting a 360 degree ’exploration’ of our living room and loaded these into Autostitch. You can see the result in the image above. All you need to do is start the program and load the images, and Autostitch will do the rest. Your involvement is limited to (a) providing the images, and (b) changing the program settings (which, aside from the output resolution, tend to be a bit esoteric such as ’blending method’, ’gain’, autocrop, etc). Here are some notes on the program.

• Autostitch was able to correctly ascertain the sequence of images on its own.
• Was able to process 32 high-res images (1 meg each) in a matter of seconds.
• The transitions connecting different images varied in their quality, although it was obvious to me that this is a function of the images/information that I provided the program to begin with.
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Rating: 5 pick

Version tested: 1.5.01

Description: IcoFX is an advanced icon creation and editing program that offers a full range of tools and effects for icon manipulation. It can handle a wide range of data types, color modes, resolutions, and image/icon formats.

IcoFX is an impressive program; the tools that are available for image manipulation and the various effects and editing options rival those of a sophisticated bitmap editor/paint program. Which is not to say that it is an overly complicated program; in fact, it is remarkably straightforward. Here’s what you need to know about this program.

• Useability: simple yet highly functional. Zoom up to 1000% for precision editing, switch grid off/on. Sidebar contains all different icon size incarnations for easy switching and access. Most importantly, allows multiple undos (yes, you can trace your work all the way back to the point before you messed everything up).
• Images to icons: IcoFX can do batch image to icon conversions (supports BMP, JPG, PNG, and GIF image formats). Unlike Imagicon, another program that I reviewed recently, IcoFX will create individual icon files that contain multiple icon sizes. You can also export images if you like (including transparencies).
• Icon Extraction: point IcoFX to an EXE file or icon DLL library and it can extract any available icons (including Vista icons). It can do this individually or in batches of files/icons.
• Capture icons: just tell IcoFX the icon size you want, and the capture tool will allow you to ’snap’ any area on your screen and edit is/use it as an icon.
• Editing Tools: in addition to the default tools that you would expect, this program includes tools such as an opacity tool, a gradient tool, and a blur/sharpen tool. Other editing option include flipping and rotating (including free rotation), brightness/contrast manipulation, color balance manipulation through sliders, opacity, fadeout, and shadow. You can also change the dimensions of the icon you are working with. Read more »

Rating: 5

Version tested: 1.0.5

Description: Visual Subst can associate any folder with a virtual hard drive in order to make it readily accessible in ’My Computer’ or by simply typing in the virtual drive letter in the folder address prompt.

If you frequently work with a folder or folders that are buried deep within your system’s folder hierarchy (say, something like “C:\Program Files\KillerApp\Templates\Folder”), you can use Visual Subst to associate said folder with a virtual drive, (”x:”, for example), making it much more easily accessible simply by typing in “x:” in any folder address prompt or clicking the new “x:” drive directly from ’My Computer’.

Note that this program does not actually change the location of your folder (it is still in its original location and can be navigated to from the folder structure). Also, the virtual drive can be easily removed at any point.
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Rating: 5

Description: "What Makes you Tick" is a free point and click adventure game in the vein of old Lucas Arts games. It was built using the ’Lassie’ freeware authoring engine and features beautiful visuals and atmosphere.

Young Nathan has been sent by his university to deliver an important message to a retired professor. We are not initially told how or why the university knows this information, but the professor’s life is apparently in danger, and Nathan must find him. He is sent to the professor’s last known residence somewhere in the countryside, and he soon learns that he is not the only one seeking the professor.

This is a very straightforward and accessible adventure game. It is not super difficult, making it very well suited to the casual adventure gamer (like myself). Here’s what you need to know about it:
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Rating: 5

Version tested: 2.4

Description: Namu6 is a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website creation and editing tool that can be used by anyone without any HTML or coding knowledge required.

I will start by saying that this is a beautifully designed program. Whenever I review programs like this I expect to spend a few days working with the program, reading instructions and going through tutorials before I can come to grips with it and/or get to a point where I can start generating results; Namu6 was so intuitive and so simple to use that I was a bit taken aback. As an added bonus it does a very competent job creating websites too.

Here are some notes on this program:

• The user interface: simple and uncluttered. There are a number of controls on the toolbar but you will not use these much; 90% of your interactions with this program will consist of selecting an element on the page and right-clicking to prompt a context menu that is relevant to the element you are working with. These menus are very well organized and somewhat sparse, but they manage to deliver most of the functionality that you need.
• The website theme: Namu6 will have you design a theme for your website (i.e. what the top banner will look like and how it will be formatted, what the text headers and different borders will look like, etc.) Once this is in place it applies to your website as a whole; i.e. the look and feel you create will be preserved across all pages. On the one hand, this makes your website consistent throughout, and the site will not be a mess of different colors and fonts. On the other, though, it also makes it very difficult to create different pages with custom looks and/or styles. Note that the program comes with a number of built-in themes and a you can download more from the website.
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I’ve been keeping my eye out for some time now for some good, free icon resources. Here’s a number that I would like to share; remember, you can use Imagicon or IcoFX to convert any image into the ICO format in whatever icon size(s) that you need. If you want to create icon libaries check out BeCyIconGrabber. If you would like to edit or modify your icons, you would be hard pressed to find a better free tool than IcoFX.

Vistaicons.com: contains over 2000 high quality 256×256 icons (suitable for Windows Vista) in PNG and ICO formats. Freely downloadable.

Toolsbox PNG Package Deluxe: version 6.1 features 240 (128*128) High-Quality PNG Icons. The home page seems may be down but you can download it here (3.71 megs).

Iconaholic: this website has some amazing icons, wallpapers, and themes available for download; commercial use of these requires a licensing fee.

Crystal Clear Icon Pack: created by Brazillian artist Everaldo Coelho; view and download individual icons at Wikimedia commons crystal clear icons page or download collectively from the artist’s site.
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Rating: 5 pick

Version tested: 1.0.1.6

Description: QT TabBar creates tabbed windows within Windows Explorer (similar to tabs in Firefox and IE7). It comes with a number of nifty features including a favorites function for launching folders and applications, groupings of folders that can be opened together, tooltip preview functions for a number of file types, and others. It is also highly customizable and hotkey-enabled.

There are categories of users who will like this program: (a) those who think that the tabbed windows in Firefox and now in IE7 are the best thing ever, and wonder why tabs aren’t featured in every single program that’s ever created, (b) users who work with a lot of windows/folders and can use tabs in windows explorer to better organize their desktop and reduce clutter, and finally (c) everybody else; which is to say that I think this program will appeal to most everyone.

In fact, there are quite a number of cool features which will make navigating/browsing your folders much easier and more interesting. Here are my notes on some of these:

• Customizable Tabs: the program options give you a significant degree of control over how the tabs are presented and what they look like.
• Folder Favorites: called ’groupings’. You can create a single ’favorites’ entry for a a group of folders that you can use to open these together. You can access your ’favorites’ through the “QT TabBar standard buttons” which can be displayed within the explorer toolbar.
• Preview tips: hovering over a number of file types creates a little preview window, including text files and images.
• Subfolder tips: a little arrow becomes visible under folders that can be clicked on in order to navigate/preview the directory tree structure within it (you can optionally also view files within the tree structure not just folders - see screenshot). This is one of my favorite features, although I might also mention that, in my experience, navigating through a lengthy tree of folders containing many files caused the program to become rather slow and unresponsive.
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