Description: ToneShop is a small, free program that can create ringtones out of your audio files for any phone that supports a true audio ringtone, including the Apple IPhone. It provides the ability to quickly and easily select a snippet of sound from within your audio files to be used as a ringtone.

I’ve had my eye out for a simple program that can quickly create ringtones out of MP3s for my IPhone when I found this program, which in fact can do this for a very wide range of phones and devices. ToneShip is in fact a frontend GUI for FFMPEG, the encoding engine which the majority of freeware video and audio conversion programs are based. Here are more notes on this one.

• How it works: simply load an audio file, then use the (0.1 second precision) trackbar to identify beginning and end points for your ringtone (note that different phones vary on length of ringtone they will accept, so take that into consideration). You can also enter in the start and finish positions as values manually, and preview the ringtone snippet by pressing the "show" button. Finally, select the desired ringtone file format from the dropdown and press the "convert" button to create your ringtone.
• Phones supported: all phones that use true audio ringtones. Go here for a (non-exhaustive) list.
• Audio file types supported: can input MP3, WAV, WMA, and M4A formats, and produce ringtones in MP3, WAV (uncompressed PCM), AAC (Advanced Audio Codec, .m4a), Nokia TrueTones (AMR-WB, .amr), AMR-NB (.amr)
  Yamaha SMAF (.mmf),ADPCM (4-bit compressed PCM. way), and Apple IPhone (AAC, .m4r).
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Description: this posting will compare a number of different possible ways to convert PDF files into Word Doc format, including freeware programs and free web and email services. Six different programs/services are tested: (1) PDF2HTMLgui, (2) the Koolwire email PDF to DOC conversion service, (3) the Zamzar web service, (4) Free PDF To Word Doc Converter, (5) Adobe PDF to HTML email conversion service, and (6) the MediaConvert web service.

In order to do this test I created a PDF document using Open Office’s export to PDF function that had the following elements (1) a two-column table with special formatting, which contained (2) three thumbnail-szied jpeg images. My PDF document also contained (3) working hyperlinks; and (4) it featured text that was bolded; (5) contained bulleted points, as well as (6) a numbered list.

For the sake of simplicity my PDF was only a single page. To see what the document looked like click on the screenshot to the right.

The objective: was to get a converted document that could be loaded into MS Word where the text/contents could be edited and subsequently saved as .DOC format, which is to say any of the following formats would be satisfactory: .DOC, .HTML, and .RTF.

Comparative results: look for them at the bottom of this positng.
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Description: ZipInstaller is a small program that can streamline no-install apps in zip files such that they are extracted in the right place, and provides these with shortcuts in the start menu and desktop, as well as an uninstall entry in Windows’ add/remove control panel.

There are so many reasons to like programs that don’t need to be installed; (a) they can be copied onto USB and portable drives and accessed on-the-go from any computer, (b) they can be placed anywhere on the hard drive that you wish, and (c) in most cases they do not write anything to the registry, and can simply be delete in lieu of a formal uninstall.

However, as the number of no-install programs I have downloaded have proliferated, I’ve noticed the following patterns: (a) programs unzipped and forgotten on the desktop, in my download directory, and other random places, (b) programs unzipped and completely forgotten, having no shortcut in the start menu to remind me of their existence, and (c) programs no longer needed but not removed, having no “uninstall” entry in Windows add/remove control panel to call attention to them when I am inclined to remove programs I no longer need.

Which is why I was excited to discover ZipInstaller. This is a very simple executable that can “install properly almost any software compressed in Zip files that doesn’t provide an install/uninstall module”. All you have to do is simply run and point to a zip archive and it will do the following:

• Extract all files from the zip archive and into the destination directory you select.
• Creates shortcuts to the program in the start menu and desktop, and adds an uninstall module within Windows add/remove.
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Description: This posting will describe how to change the default image editor used by Windows using a small freeware program called Imgeditor, and will propose 5 freeware image editing programs that you can use instead (Photoscape, GIMP, Paint.Net, Image, and I.Mage).

I was recently testing a screenshot capture program that uses the default Windows image editing program (Microsoft Paint) to edit screenshots once they are captured. This lead to two realizations:

1. I already knew MS Paint does not meet my needs, but now I decided to figure out how to change the default editor to point to one of the many fantastic freeware bitmap editing programs that are out there.
2. It also occurred to me that the “edit” entry for image filetypes in the explorer context menu (see screenshot above) is wasted space, and that changing it to point to a decent image editor is a fantastic idea.

I therefore set out and did a search on Google; and found that changing the default image editor involves editing a couple of values in the registry - or you can have a freeware program called Imgeditor do it for you. (Download it here).

Imgeditor is a very straightforward program that you unzip and run and does not need to be installed. Simply select the image types then point it to the program you would like to use as your default editor. Note that you could use the program to revert back to the default Windows image editing settings.

Now you can simply right click on an image file ans select edit in the context menu and the image will be loaded into your image editor of choice!

If you are looking for good image editing programs, here are five freeware recommendations:
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Description: Shell Tools is a collection of Windows enhancements that add five functions to the right-click context menu that allow you to do the following: add notes to any file, right click to toggle view hidden files on/off, copy URLs from IE bookmarks, load or install fonts, and register/unregister COM servers for DLL, OCX, and EXE files on demand. You can choose to enable any or all of these modules on your system as you wish.

I know a lot of readers share my love of Windows shell extensions, especially those that add cool functions to the right-click context menu. Shell Tools is a very interesting collection in its sheer originality - the functions provided are none of the typical context menu additions that we see frequently. Here’s a description of each of the available modules.

• Anyfile: right-click on any file in order to create and edit notes that are associated with the file. These will be saved in a text file placed in the same directory as the original file, and this file will have the same name as the original file (e.g. for "iTunesSetup.exe" the note will be saved in "iTunesSetup.txt"). What’s interesting is that you can configure the module to create a hidden text file by default so that, if you do not have "view hidden files" enabled in your folders you do not have to see the proliferation of these files as you set about creating notes (you can still access the note by selecting the original file and right-clicking filenote in the context menu). There is no support for creating folder-related notes.
• Folderbackground: with this module, a "show hidden files" entry is installed in your context menu that can quickly toggle showing/hiding hidden files in Windows’ folder views. Seems like the perfect companion to the Anyfile module (above), or if you generally like your hidden files not to be visible but would like to be able to quickly toggle them on and off on occaision.
• FontFile: provide 4 context menu entries whenever you right click on a fonts file: Load, Unload, Install, and Uninstall. The difference between load and install is that the former loads that font for use in that session (i.e. font is not available on a reboot), while install installs the font in the registry such as it loads on Windows startup.
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Description: DocShield is a program that runs in the background and monitors files and folders that you specify for changes. It will create compressed snapshots of your files whenever it detects any changes, enabling you to retrieve your files in case of data loss, and providing a retrievable version history of your files and/or data.

You may or may not be regularly backing up your most important files and/or archiving the most important version changes, and saving your backups into compressed archives to keep your files from growing too large. But chances are that you do this in fits and starts and/or are not as consistent as you like to be, or even have simply given up on this. Wouldn’t it be just great if there were a program you could run in the background that would automate do this for you and manage the process automatically? DocShield is exactly this program.

Although there are a number of freeware programs that do this (e.g. File Hamster, previously featured on Freewaregenius), DocShield features mature functions such as archive management, on-the-fly compression, and FTP backup. Here are more notes on this program:

• The user interface: is very well designed. The main configuration screen is split into 4 tabs and is very easy and intuitive to work with.
• Files monitored: can monitor local files or files on the network. You can point the program explicitly to the files you want it to monitor (drag and drop is supported), or you can define a folder/folders and tell it to scan for certain file-types (you can include or exclude subfolders and use wildcards to exclude certain files). I would strongly encourage the former approach as I have found that pointing the program to a folder that contains a large number of big files can sometimes be problematic.
• Monitoring activity: the program will check for changes in your files and folders at 5 minutes periods by default, but you can set this to anything you like (seconds/minutes/hours). If it finds that a file has changed from the latest version of it in the archive it will add that latest version to the archive. Any changes or versions that may have been created between the monitoring intervals will not be recorded. (You can also trigger the monitoring action manually by pressing the “Shiled Now” button)
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Description: RecentFilesView is a small, no install freeware program that can retrieve and save the list of the most recently accessed files.

If you’ve ever needed a list of the last opened files on your machine, RecentFilesView is for you. It provides a much more comprehensive list than the one in the "Recent Documents" folder. Here are some scenarios I could think of where you wil find this program very useful:

• If you are working on a project and for whatever reason need to create a list of all the relevant files for that project. With RecentFilesView you can export a comprehensive or partial list to a text or CSV files and edit that as needed.
• If you are uncertain as to which files or file versions you were using when you were working on a project 5 days ago. With RecentFilesView you should be able to survey that history in a snap.
• Please post other uses you might think of in the comments.

Here are more notes on this app:

• Sorting: you can sort by created time, modified time, executed time, and filename.
• Which files will be listed?: those files that were either opened from the desktop or from an application. It will list folders that were opened as well.. It will display your file activity, not files that were created or accessed by programs, such as temp files or cached files saved by your browser. Files that are deleted will also be listed, although it will indicate in the list that the file is no longer available.
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Description: Flash this! is a small, free tool that can convert video files to flash (both FLV and SWF).

This program is a frontend to FFMpeg, the transcoding engine behind the majority of freeware video conversion programs. Here are some notes on this one:

• No decisions to make: except whether you want to convert to FLV or SWF. No resizing, changing aspect ratio or bitrate, etc. This is part of why I like this program. The resulting video will have the same resolution, aspect ratio, bitrate … etc, as the original. For a more ’transformative’ FLV conversion use Super, Internet Video Converter, etc.
• Super fast: probably because it is not re-encoding individual video and audio tracks but simply creating a new container.
• Supports SWF: which is simply fantastic, and another reason why I decided to feature this program on Freewaregenius.
• Memory use: a nice compact 8 megs.
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Description: PhotoMesa is a free tool for managing image libraries. Dubbed a "zoomable image browser", it employs an innovative method for browsing a large number of images by zooming in and out of folders in a sort of "bird’s eye view". It also offers the ability to browse image collections by folder, category, people, year, and month, and for adding searchable tags and captions stored within the image files themselves using the IPTC standard.

This program was apparently developed based on research that was done in the University of Maryland’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab, and the end result is a very intuitive way of browsing image libraries. What you will immediately notice when you first start using this program is its unique (and quite pleasing) way of scrolling through a large number of images in "zoom mode" (I will attempt a description of this below, but if you want to get a sense of this see the video at the bottom of this review). Here are more notes on this program:

• Zoom mode: by default, Photomesa will scan the folders that you tell it to and generate groups of rectangles that represent your folder tree visually. What is nice about this representation is that (a) it serves to take maximum advantage of your available screen space, and (b) it allows you a bird’s-eye-view (or satellite-eye view more like) which allows you to easily browse your entire image collection in a very intuitive way.
• Scroll mode: is a normal interface of viewing folders or groups sequentially employed in most programs (such as Picasa). This is made available in case you prefer a conventional way of working with folders/groups. This is also a better interface when you need to see all images within folders, as zoom mode uses "representative" images for most folders until you zoom into it.
• Interacting with the program: the system of interaction under zoom mode is well thought out, and takes a very short time to get the hang of it. Left or right clicking over any rectangle zooms in and out of it, respectively. Each rectangle will only display a representative number of thumbnails, but once zoomed into will display all the images within using very small thumbnails (this depends on the program window size and the number of images within). Hovering on any thumbnail produces a larger floating preview of the image, which is very useful. You can perform operations on the images by selecting one or more images (using CTRL or Shift) and using a number of options in the context menu (rotating, captioning, making an image a "favorite", etc).
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Description: Mp3ListShellEx is Windows Explorer shell extension that allows you to create playlists or text lists of your MP3s simply by highlighting a folder and selecting an option from the right click context menu.

Some things, such as organizing a large MP3 collection, never seem to end. Mp3ListShellEx is a program that could potentially make your audio library easier to manage, especially if you organize your audio files within a folder structure, by enabling you to create playlists (and track lists) out of folder contents simply by right clicking on the folder. It relieves you from the need to keep launching your media player every time you need to do this simple operation. Here are more notes on this program:

• Formats supported: creates playlists that can be played by media players (M3U, WPL, B4S, PLS), or lists of files in HTM, XML, CSV, or XLS (Excel) formats.
• Recursive processing: from the settings, the program can be configured to either process folders-within-folders recursively or not. Folders-within-folders are included in a single playlist.
• Processing multiple folders: check "seperate list for each folder" in the settings, then select multiple folders and run. A seperate playlist will be created for each folder.
• Sorting: you can select to sort the generated playlist by any column available in the explorer details view (Album, artist, title, track, etc). Unfortunately doesn’t allow for multiple sorting criteria (see wish list below).
• Creation location: you can create playlists inside the folder itself, or set to create inside a pre-determined location (e.g. Desktop, My Documents), or have the program prompt you for a location.
• Wildcards: you can define a wildcard from the settings. By default it’s "*.mp3" but it could be anything you need (e.g. *depeche mode* will filter depeche mode tracks assuming that string is in the file name).
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Description: Synaesthete is a free 3D isometric game that introduces some very interesting innovations to the shoot em up genre. It aims to synchronize visuals and audio in a unified whole, where both interact and are an part of the gaming experience.

The objective of this game is not new: make your way from room to room inside a 3D Isometric universe, dispensing of bad guys along the way, collecting health power-ups and the like that are scattered around the terrain, and using spells that have various effects (such as killing all baddies within a certain range). Its all woven together within the sub-text of your character, termed a "Zaikman", protecting the collective unconscious.

It all sounds all too familiar, you might say, except for the way your Zaikman’s firepower is deployed. This is done with the help of a device called the "tracker" which sits prominently in the middle of the screen. Both the intensity and accuracy of your firepower depends on how accurately you can mimic the patterns of colored blips that cascade down the screen (and into the tracker) using three keys on your keyboard, basically the same principle as that employed by games such as "Dance Dance Revolution" or "Guitar Hero".

The net effect of this is as follows: with your left hand you will be maneuvering your guy to dodge bad guys, while with your right hand you will be frantically tapping three keys and trying to match the falling patterns. Add to this the pulsating beats of music, and the patterns and colors that are exploding all over the screen, and it all makes for some very intense gameplay (see video below).
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Description: Filebox Extender is a free windows explorer extension that adds a number of buttons on the top right of open windows next to the minimize, maximize and close buttons, including a "stay on top" pushpin button, a window roll-up button that hides all but the title bar of a window, a favorites folder button, and a recent folders button. Filebox Extender provides these functions in open folder and application windows, in open/save dialogs and in the system tray.

Although there are a number of programs similar to this that are also free and have been featured on Freewaregenius, Filebox Extender has done a terrific job in the brilliant placement of the functions that it provides on the top right of open windows (near the minimize, maximize, and close buttons). This is a good idea because it standardizes Filebox Extender’s interface whether the user is working with open folder windows, application windows, or even open/save dialogs. The end result is that Filebox Extender manages to provide a streamlined, more intuitive user experience than some of the other available freeware programs which provide similar functions. Here are more notes on this program:

• The look and feel: the extra functions that Filebox Extender provides are very well placed and after a few days of use you might start to wonder why Windows didn’t have something like this built-in in the first place.I tried it on XP and the additional buttons have a distinct XP look that blends into the XP interface. You can switch this off to get buttons that look like older versions of Windows which I didn’t care for much. Not sure how this looks on Vista. I will confess that, although I have known about this program for a very long time, I stopped short of reviewing it previously simply because I didn’t care for the way the icons looked (although these can be customized, see below). Also I saw screenshots that featured Filebox Extender’s Windows 98/2000 look.
• The favorite and recent folders: this is the main draw, at least for me. You can define favorites easily from within the settings or otherwise simply by browsing to the intended folder and adding it via an option on the favorites icon itself. Very cool. You can access your favorite folders or recent folders from the open/save dialog or from any folder window, as well as the system tray. Remarkably, it works with MS Office open/save dialogs, something which a number of similar programs that provide favorites in these dialogs failed to do.
• The windows management functions: the two functions offered, stay on top and rollover windows are nicely implemented. The rollover function, in case you are wondering, minimizes the window in-place so that only the title bar is visible, similar to a window blind.
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Description: this posting will present an overview of a number of freeware options that can add informational tooltips to various file types. Informational tooltips are those informational windows that appear when you hover the mouse over various files. Five programs are presented here including Infotag Magic, Filetip, Thumbview, MediaCoder, and Audioshell.

Shortly after publishing my Infotag Magic review (a program which introduces informational tooltips for a variety of file types including audio files, text files, and executables), I received an email from a reader asking about the possibility of adding tooltips to images and video files that displayed the image resolution for these. I therefore did a bit of research about the various freeware options for installing tooltips for a range of filetypes, and this is a summary of what I found. Note that the first thing that you should do before installing anything is check if the filetypes you are interested in already have adequate tooltips, as many media players and image viewers introduce this functionality.

1. Infotag Magic: adds a variety of info tooltips for: MP3, WMA, APE, and Ogg Vorbis, text-preview tooltips for various text files (TXT, INI, LOG, BAT, DIZ, BAK, and QUE), file version tooltips for executables (EXE, DLL, and OCX), and original file locations for shortcuts. The only drawback with this software, aside from the file types that were not supported (such as images and videos) was that the audio file info was not consistent, and would fail to display tag info that was in the audio files on occasion. Which is a good segue to the next program I would like to mention.
2. MediaInfo: this is one of the better freeware programs designed to provide all manner of information about your video files (resolution, codecs used for different audio/video streams, etc). The latest version of MediaInfo has an optional experimental feature whereby it displays extensive and detailed tooltips covering every bit of information that you might imagine about your media files (both audio and video), perfect for anyone who does a lot of media editing, conversion. The only drawback is that the tooltips look a little bit messy, and the program does not allow you to configure the information presented in the tooltips or the media file types to display tooltips for. Note(1): you have to enable tooltips in the settings, where you will find a message telling you that this is an experimental feature and to disable it if explorer starts acting strange. Note (2): this program handles all manner of video and audio file types, but it does not support image files.
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Description: in this posting I present 5 of my favorite wallpaper images, all of which feature a single, lonely tee typically surrounded by an expansive sky and/or field.

There is an image that I’ve been using as my wallpaper for a very long time of a single, lone tree in a brown field, illuminated by the brilliant orange of a sunset. I am not sure where I downloaded it, but it was featured in numerous screenshots that I have put up on Freewaregenius. This is probably my favorite wallpaper image ever, and works really well as a wallpaper because of the large single-color areas without much activity. Thankfully, I was able to find more information on this image by searching for its filename on Google, and was able to trace the photographer Michal Karcz’s page on deviantART (more nice photography there, including variations the tree theme). You can download a hi-res version of this wallpaper image here. (Note: the images that open when clicking on the thumbnails have all been degraded, but I am providing links to pages where you can find hi-res versions for all of these).

Now I usually do not put much effort into seeking wallpaper images, and am in fact inclined to use the original Windows XP “Bliss” wallpaper that is the default provided by Microsoft. However, every once in a while I will browse image/wallpaper sites out of curiosity. Thus I was browsing an image site and downloaded a handful of images, my favorite of which, once again, depicted a single lone tree surrounded by a vast expanse of sky and field. Unfortunatley this took place some time ago and I can no longer trace back what the site was that it came from, but you can download this image here.
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Description: Desktop Earth is an interactive wallpaper generator that presents an accurate, constantly changing representation of the earth as it would be seen from space at that precise moment on your desktop wallpaper.

Not all Wallpaper images are created equal, but this one has to be one of the coolest. Desktop Earth presents a changing image of the globe and displays shadows on lights based on the current time. It also retrieves a semi-realtime cloud image from the Internet in order to generate an accurate depiction of what the earth would look like at the very moment you are looking at it (more or less) if you were looking at it from space. More notes on this:

• Imagery: the globe used in Desktop Earth uses imagery based on NASA’s Blue Marble: Next Generation and Earth’s City Lights. Images are created from high-resolution textures (2560×1280) and should work well on any display.
• Time zone: the time zone (and therefore the progression of shadows and lights) can be set to update every 1, 5, 15 or 60 minutes.
• Clouds: Desktop Earth can update its cloud representations from the internet every 3, 6, 12, or 24 hours, depending on what you choose in the settings. These clouds are generated for the Xplanet project and are actually image mosaics generated from weather satellite images (therefore not 100% accurate, but close). You can control the degree of desired cloud cover thickness in the settings.
• Night view: can be generated in 5 different ways (city lights, abundant city lights, moonlit surface, simple shadows, or no night imager). All of these look fantastic, but my favorite is abundant city lights (with moonlit surface coming at a very close second).
• Different months: the program uses a different image of the globe for each different month, in order to accurately simulate snow and foliage changes. (This is the kind of attention to detail that just blows me away).
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