Are you interested in stocks? Do you invest or want to invest? Whatever your need, if you’ve ever wanted to put a stock ticker on your desktop this is the program that will do it. Here are more notes on this app:

• Data source: stock prices and news headlines are downloaded from Yahoo Finance.
• Info provided: stock price and difference from last price in dollars and percentages, color coded.
• Interactivity: hover over your stock price and a balloon tooltip with the latest related headlines from Yahoo Finance will be displayed.
• Regular RSS feeds: can be defined in the settings. You can then right click on any of the scrolling lines and select an RSS feed to view it. You can also randomize regular RSS feeds or randomize RSS feeds and stocks (see image to the right).
• Number of lines/tickers: you can have up to six bands scrolling simultaneously.
• Placement: top or bottom (which can be defined in the setup)
• Customizable: you can customize text and background colors, opacity, and scrolling speed.

Wish list (or how this program can be even better)

• The ability to switch interactivity on and off. I noticed that I would inadvertently trigger tooltips during my normal computer activity without intending it. It would be great if, for example, the stock ticker optionally responded to shift+clicking rather than just clicking, to avoid unintended triggering.
• The ability to remove Fox news and CNN RSS feeds, which are predefined.

The verdict: a nice little app for sure. I like (a) that it can display regular RSS feeds as well as stock, (b) that the scrolling is nice and smooth, and (c) its general look and feel, which is quite nice (see the screenshots). But Free Stock Ticker can be even better (see wish list above).

Note that there are a number of free programs that deliver the same function, such as another app with the exact same name (Free Stock Ticker) and TickerTape. If you want to try another program that is just an RSS news ticker and dont care for stocks check out Easy Desk Ticker which I mentioned previously in my posting entitled "Nine Ways to Check RSS feeds".

Version Tested: 1.2.2

Compatibility: WinAll. Requires MS .NET Framework 3.5. Download it here.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 319K).

[Editor’s note: this post was written by Freewaregenius contributor EngineerHead. Check out his tech blog here].

TV channels listings are called Electronic Program Guides (EPG), also known as Interactive Program guides (IPG) or Electronic Service Guides (ESG). These are provided by TV distribution services or through newspapers, but if you are looking for a utility that can bring the schedules of your favorite TV channels right to your desktop then TV-Browser is the program that you’re looking for.

Here are more notes on this program:

• Ease of use: initial configuration and selecting network settings and TV channels is pretty easy. If a problem occurs, there is a setup assistant to guide the user.
• Reminders: you can add reminders for your favorite program. By default, the program displays a notification at a specific time interval before the program’s scheduled time. It can be modified to launch an application depending upon the requirement.
• Calendar Support: The favorite TV listings can be added to the preferred Calendar application. TV-Browser supports MS Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar, iCal, and vCal files.
• Add Favorites: a program can be added to favorites based on your defined filters such as actor, subject or program. In the Favorites wizard, an alert can be activated to inform you whenever a matching program is found.
• Genres View: in tree view, the user can navigate through a list of programs based on Genres. This option provides an easy way to find a program depending upon the taste of viewer.
• Recording Option: recording control is enabled for systems with digital receivers. TV-Browser can interact with common hardware and software configurations; check this link for a list. There is some support available to enable the user’s recording configuration, if it is not listed.
• Extensibility: the application’s functions can be enhanced and refined through plug-in development. Users can also customize the look of TV-Browser with themes and icons.

The verdict: this program is a one-stop destination for all of your favorite TV channel information, but it also offers advanced features like reminder, recording control and calendar export, making it a rich application. Last but not least, if your favorite TV channel is not present in the list, you can request to add it. Rush and Grab it and you will never again miss your favorite program.

Version Tested: 2.7

Compatibility: multiplatform Windows, Linux, Mac. Requires Java 5 Run Time Environment or higher. Get latest version of Java here.

Visit the TV-Browser’s website for more information. The download links are on this page(approximate download size ~ 2.7 MBs).

You likely have a reason for having multiple browsers installed on your PC (assuming that you do!). I use IE7 at work, for example, because most of the people who browse our work sites use that browser and I prefer to have their same browsing experience. But I also have Firefox installed because of the many interesting extensions and plugins that it has, etc.

Whatever your reasons for having multiple browsers, BrowserMaster is a small app that becomes, in effect, your default browser, and once it detects a request to open an internet link it briefly flashes browser icons on screen and allows you to quickly select the browser that you want to use. More notes below:

• Applies to links clicked outside a browser: for example shortcuts on your desktop, in a notes program, in an email notifier app, in an Office or PDF document or an email client, etc. Links clicked inside a browser behave as normal.
• Links: works for HTTP:\\ or HTTPS:\\ links.
• Default wait time: it gives you 2 seconds to choose your browser before going with the default. This can be changed in the settings file, but has to be done manually using a text editor. The settings file is in “C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Application Data\BrowserMaster\BrowserMaster.xml”; find the “delayin seconds” tag and change the value from 2 to something else.
• Other settings: from the settings file mentioned above, you could also enable/disable specific browsers. Find and change (Enabled=”true”) to (Enabled=”false”) for each listed browser.

Wish list (or how to make this program even better)

• Force a choice: I wish that BrowserMaster could be set to force the user to make a choice rather than the few seconds that this version waits for a decision.
• Set a default browser: it does not seem possible to set a default browser choice. It will default to whatever browser is open, but if no browser is open it defaulted to something and I couldn’t figure out how it made its decision (or whether that can be changed).
• Present a choice when opening local links: for pages that were stored on my hard drive, it didn’t give a choice, which I thought was strange.
• GUI interface: to quickly change the settings. Would be great.

The verdict: an original, clever little app that has a lot of potential. As it is it can be very useful, but they can really push this one and make it a lot better in my opinion. Check it out for yourself.

[Via: Umair from Crispytech tipped me off about this one; check out his BrowserMaster writeup here]

Version Tested: 1.1.0 Beta (note: I STRONGLY recommend installing this one over 1.0)

Compatibility: WinAll

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 376K).

[Editor's note: this post was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].

Text 2 Mind Map

Text 2 Mind Map is listed as a work in progress, but it’s very complete in what it does. While it’s not as advanced as the other sites on the list, it is the most simple to use. You just make an outline of the text that you want in the left pane. Use Tab to indent and Shift+Tab to outdent to make the order of your thoughts. You can easily edit the list while you’re working on it or after the chart has been made.

The toolbox on the right is also straight forward and you can move it around to if it’s in your way. You can make the screen go full size in order to accommodate your chart if it’s too big. By default the chart will move around whenever you update it or drag nodes around so that everything is mostly equidistant. You can turn this off by checking the ‘Freeze map’ and then drag everything how you want it to look. You can change the size and the color of the text from the Toolbox and you change the color of each node level by clicking on the node and then the small arrow that appears. You can also change that coloring from the Toolbox under the Colors section. You can also choose to have each branch a separate color instead of each level if you’d prefer it that way under Coloring Method. Finally, you can change the line color and width as well.

You can save the Mind Map for working on later by just manually copy/pasting the outline to a file for yourself and you can save the image by hitting the ‘Save map…’ button in the toolbox to render a .jpg version of it.

Lovely Charts

Lovely Charts allows you to make flowcharts, sitemaps, wireframes, organization charts, network diagrams and pretty much anything else by allowing you to import .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, or .png images as symbols. Lovely Charts has a Basic, free version and a Premium version at $29 Euros a year. You can see what the version differences are on their FAQ page and judge for yourself if it’s worth the upgrade. The Basic version allows you to create diagrams with the full symbol library and the ability to export as .jpg or .png files. The diagrams will have a Lovely Charts logo with the free version. The free version allows you to have one editable document that can be collaborated upon with others.

To get started with Lovely Charts, just create account and enter the verification code that’s e-mailed to you. You’ll have to have Adobe Flash installed for your browser, but you can quickly start creating diagrams for whatever purpose you need. Some cool features of Lovely Charts includes opacity control for each symbol and the ability to quickly select a different symbol in the same library group from the right-click menu. You can also control the line width and arrow end of any pointing lines and align the symbols to a grid.

Lovely Charts uses a different type of control to create symbols that I didn’t quite find intuitive although I believe if I got accustomed to it, you could very quickly create charts if you had a specific purpose in mind. You start off by dragging a symbol from the toolbar onto the grid. You then drag that object to where you want the next object to be and a copy will be made with an arrow pointing back to the original object. You can then right-click the new object to change it to a different symbol if needed. While an interesting method that seemed very smooth, I think I would prefer a more static system where I could just drag an object, drag a different object, and then drag an arrow from one to another.

Creately

Creately is the full-blown experience and the best tool out of this list. It is a data driven, online diagramming & design suite all in one sharp web application. With Creately, you have a package that is much more comparable to the full-blown commercial suites like Microsoft Visio. You can sign up for an account to get started immediately. Creately gives you a lot for free: unlimited public diagrams, 5 people collaborating on a diagram at most, the ability to publish/export, 10 megabytes of storage, and SSL protected connections. With the basic account, all exported documents are watermarked with the Creately logo. You can upgrade to the Creately Plus! account at a ‘pay what you want’ price. But back to the features you get with the basic account (free):

You can collaborate with people over flowcharts, mockups, network diagrams, presentations, sitemaps, and a lot more. You can easily create your charts using the drag and drop interface, resize shapes, and easily undo any mistakes you make along the way. In your collaborating, revisions will be made and your co-workers can leave comments on the revisions. As far as the visual display is concerned, you can style your charts or even make graphics out of the tools available at hand including gradients, style, text size and font, and the alignment of nodes.

You can export your diagrams as an image, a PDF file, an XML data file, or send through e-mail. Your diagrams can all be saved under your account for easy access from any Flash-enabled browser. Creately also uses tabs to allow you to work on multiple files easily at the same time.

See their demo video for a tour and a display of its awesome ability to intelligently work with network diagrams and other features:

This is one of those programs that are difficult to write about just because they contain so many functions and do many things. In some ways Signo is comparable to such automation tools as AutoHotkey, although it is less complex and more accessible. However, unlike AutoHotkey Signo does not have a scripting component so it is not a full fledged macro engine and development environment.

Aside from its accessibly what I also like about Signo is that it is very small (occupies a mere 9 megs in memory); I also like that it can give you a sort of "shortcut report" for your system that displays all of its keyboard shortcuts as well as ones that are used by other apps and by Windows (part of which is in fact pictured in the screenshot above).

Here are 7 (Seven!) cool things that this program can do:

1. Snap windows to the edges of the screen: in the style of Windows 7, using keyboard shortcuts (Alt+Win+Up/left/right/top/bottom).
2. Minimize to tray: (Ctrl+Win+T) will minimize the current window or app to the tray. Interestingly, you can minimize all windows to the tray in one fell swoop by pressing (Ctrl+Win+Z).
3. Launch apps and URLs: from the system tray or via hotkey.
4. Auto corrections (and abbreviations): we’ve seen this before with AutoHotkey; you can add frequently misspelled words to a list such that every time you type in a misspelling it is automatically corrected for you.
5. Insert predefined text: you can either set a custom hotkey that would insert a specified text, or define a "textkey" that you can type in and watch it magically being transformed to your predefined text (e.g. you can set "#sig" to automatically insert your signature/name/etc. inside the text you’re writing).
6. Optimize applications’ memory utilization: this program is by the same developer who released Minimem, an excellent memory optimization utility designed to reduce the memory footprint of individual programs. It would appear that they have incorporated that program’s functionality into Signo such that you could add any app from within Signo and create a shortcut that would optimize its memory use. Super cool!. For browsers use the predefined Shift+Win+B if your browser starts gobbling up large amounts of RAM.
7. Context menu of functions, anywhere: Ctrl+Alt+leftmouse will display a handy context menu of Signo functions anywhere you happen to be at that time.

Wish list: (or how this program can be even better)

• Disabling functions: although it is possible to delete functions you don’t want, I found myself wishing I could simply de-activate them without deleting (as it is you have the option to export them then delete, which keeps the option to re-import later if you want to).
• The screenshot function: needs to be improved. I was not able to capture a screenshot of a context menu (the program kept releasing it for me), wasn’t able to define a quality setting for my saved JPG, wasn’t able to attach a suffix or prefix to filenames. A "Repeat last capture" function would also be good.

The verdict: a nice program overall. If you find that it contains a bit too many functions and shortcuts you can always remove the ones that you don’t want and customize the keyboard shortcuts if needed. And at 9 megs in memory, Signo manages to be both powerful and small. Check it out.

Version Tested: 1.4

Compatibility: Windows 2003, Vista, Server 2008, 2000, XP, Windows 7.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 2.46 megs).

[Editor’s note: this review was contributed by blogger Ishan of ILoveFreeSoftware.com].

When Twitter was launched, I was really skeptical about how far it would go. 140 characters seemed like a joke. However, Twitter has proved me and tons of others wrong. Part of its strength is attributable to Twitter’s openly accessible API, whcih anyone can use that for free to build their own custom software (and which developers, unlike iPhone applications, do not need to get approval from Twitter). This API is why many people have come with up some really innovative applications around Twitter, and TweetMyPC is one of them.

To start, you need to install TweetMyPC on the PC that you need to control remotely. I find it useful to install this on my home PC, so that I can get stuff from it while I am in office or on vacation. After that, you need to associate the program with a Twitter account that TweetMyPC will monitor for your tweets. It is recommended that you create a separate Twitter account for TweetMyPC rather than use your primary Twitter account. Also, you should disable public access of your new Twitter account, so that no one else can do some fishy activity on your PC by sending tweets to your new account. To disable public access of your Twitter account, go to Twitter then Settings. In the "Account" tab, you will see an option at bottom that says "Protect my tweets". Once you check this option no one can follow your tweets. Also, do not follow anyone with this new account, otherwise their tweets will start coming in your timeline, and can confuse TweetMyPC.

Another step you need to take is associate a Gmail account with TweetMyPC. This email account will be used to get files from your PC (as I will explain later). You can choose an existing Gmail account, but you will need to provide your Gmail password as well, so I would recommend creating a new Gmail account for this. Once you are done with the setup, TweetMyPC will monitor your assigned Twitter account in one minute intervals to see to see if there are tweets that it needs to act on. Once you send a command to TweetMyPC it will act on that tweet and send you a tweet in response.

Here are some of the main things that TweetMyPC can do for you:

• Shutdown/Restart your PC: just tweet "Shutdown", and TweetMyPC will shutdown your system. Similarly, "Logoff", "Reboot", "Lock", "Hibernate", "Standby" will do the respective tasks as their names suggest.
• Get Screenshot of your system: if you are wondering what might be happening on your system in your absence, you can just tweet "Screenshot". TweetMyPC will grab a screenshot of your PC, and post it on Twitpic. It will then tweet you link to that screenshot.
• Download a file to your system: let’s say you want to start downloading some big file on your system so that the download is completed by the time you reach home. To do that, just tweet "download URL". TweetMyPC will start downloading the file from the URL that you mentioned. Note, however, that you need to use a URL shortened by Bit.ly
• Get a file from your PC: Let’s say you want to get a file from your computer. Just tweet "get" followed by file path. TweetMyPC will send you the file from the specified path at the Gmail address that you specified above. If you do not know the exact path of the file, you can tweet "getfilelist" followed by drive. TweetMyPC will send you list of files and folders in that drive. You can use that to find exact path of file you are looking for, and then use "get" command to get that file.

TweetMyPC has some other interesting commands as well and also an option to define your own command. All this makes TweetMyPC a really versatile tool that is very intelligent and still one of the simplest applications to use. Shoban, the developer of this software, has done some great out of the box thinking to come up with the idea for this innovative freeware, and then to implement it so beautifully. Love it!

Version Tested: 2.0

Compatibility: Windows, Mac. Windows version requires Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 or higher.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 931K).

[Editor’s note: this posting was contributed by Freewaregenius reader Elioz Hefer; to whom I offer my extreme thanks and gratitude].

After a period of using MS Internet Explorer, my computer’s response time has become slower and I have encountered repeated problems of being thrown out from IE8 (especially). I have come to the conclusion that a clutter of addons has caused it, and resetting to default regrettably hasn’t been much help.

I therefore turned to the portable version of Mozilla firefox, with the thought that I would prefer to preserve my PC hygiene as much as possible. I have learned in time that my most valuable asset is the speed and quick response time of a computer, and therefore I try to avoid fixed installations. I also found that virtualizations such as Altiris SVS help but do not completely block remains of programs, and the same goes for programs that monitor or record program installations such as Magical Uninstall.

Firefox Portable Edition is the popular Mozilla Firefox web browser bundled with the PortableApps.com Launcher as a portable app, so you can take your bookmarks, extensions and saved passwords with you. Mozilla Firefox Portable Edition can be copied to a thumb drive so that you can use it whereever you go.

One problem though is that Firefox Portable Edition does not register itself with the system, and
thus cannot be set as the default browser using the GUI. Whenever turning to a new Url (within Portable Firefox or from library links I have previously saved, my PC would continuously opens IE8. Which is why I started looking for a way to set the portable version of Firefox to the default browser without installing the regular non portable version and the least degree of integration with my system.

The solution came in the form of very elegant program called DefaultBrowser written by Ramesh of “Ramesh’s site“, a resource dedicated to troubleshooting windows XP. This small utility can set the default browser according to user preference. What’s more, it is reversible and doesn’t install itself on the system that I could notice. Download it here.

Here is how to set Firefox Portable as the default browser for your user profile in Windows XP.

1. Download DefaultBrowser and unzip to the folder of your choice
2. Run the executable and select Firefox Portable from the list of browsers (see screenshot above) then click Apply.
3. In the Browse dialog box, select the location where the executable FirefoxPortable.exe is located.
4. That’s it. Very quickly and like magic Firefox Portable is now set as the default browser for your user account.

Notes:

1. If your desired browser is not on the list: in this case click browse button in the “for other browsers” section and point to the desired browser executable.
2. DefaultBrowser doesn’t change the IE shortcut in the “Quick Launch” menu which will still open Internet Explorer. Therefore you must manually put a shortcut of the Portable Firefox executable in the quick launch folder. To do that click the quick launch area and then choose Open folder, you can then drag create shortcuts in there or remove the ones you don’t want (I wouldn’t delete the explorer Icon from that folder in case you wish to reverse things).
3. Reversing this process: is done is done very easily by opening the small DefaultBrowser utility and choosing the reset button.
4. Important: If you’re using Mozilla Firefox Portable Edition from a USB disk: whenever the drive-letter for the USB disk changes, you’ll need to re-register FirefoxPortable.exe using the DefaultBrowser utility. For instance, the drive-letter for your USB disk may change when adding additional hardware in your system.

That’s it, enjoy!

Version Tested: 1.8

Compatibility: Windows XP.

Go to the DefaultBrowser page to download the latest version (approx 31K).

If you’re interested in a single-stop ebook and edocument reader check out STDU Viewer. It offers support for many ebook formats, including PDF, Deja-Vu, as well as the comic book formats CBZ and CBR, and is an excellent program to boot.

If you’re wondering if STDU Viewer is a good PDF reader the answer is yes. Very good in fact, and makes for a great replacement to Adobe’s reader. Here are my top ten SIX things I like about this program:

1. One ebook reader to rule them all: I love the range of formats that it covers, which comprises the most common ebook formats on the internet.
2. Tabs: are not just for Firefox anymore, and the ability to work with multiple documents simultaneously each on its own tab is not only fashionable, it makes for a good user experience.
3. Search: what’s cool about the search function is that, unlike other readers, it doesn’t just jump to the next instance of the text but actually presents a list of results (see screenshot to the right)
4. User-defined double clicking action: STDU Viewer will divide the page into four quadrants and allows you to define an action to be performed when you double click on each quadrant. For example you could set it up such that if you double click on the bottom right of the screen the program would perform a page down.
5. Thumbnails: you could place page thumbnails and the left hand margin and use them to browse. Very cool (see screenshot at the top of this post). This applies to all formats and not just comic book archives.
6. Bookmarks: if you’re reading a document you need bookmarks right? Right. STDU allows you to set bookmarks for later use. It does not store these bookmarks within the document itself.

Wish list:

• Support for: .LIT and HTML Help CHM files. This would REALLY make this program an indispensable install.

The verdict: a very nice program; install this one and use for all (or most) of your ebook / edocument reading needs.

I also like that the program is so well laid out from a usability point of view and that it is kept so simple and straightforward. Now if they would only extend their support to .LIT and .CHM files! Regardless, this reader is highly recommended.

Version Tested: 1.5

Compatibility: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 1.65 megs).

This software is similar to Windows’ built in file search function (and different from other desktop search apps previously mentioned on Freewaregenius such as Everything, DKFinder, and Locate32) in two major ways; (1) it will perform searches on demand rather than pre-index your hard drive, and (2) it will look inside file contents and not just in file and folder names.

As such it is a direct replacement for Windows’ internal desktop search, with one major improvement: the file filtering and queries possible with FileSeek are simply a cut above the default Windows search. In fact, with its support for regular expressions you can perform searches such as the following: find me all files that contain the text "bla bla bla" or if the file path contains "internet", also look for text "blabity bla" excluding HTML and PHP files and excluding any files that have "bob" or "smith" anywhere in the title. You will have to be familiar with the regular expression query syntax to do this of course (see this link for a regex tutorial). More on regular expressions here.

More notes on this software:

• It integrates into Windows’ context menu: you can right click folders or files to quickly search inside. You can add or remove these from the settings.
• It has advanced filtering abilities: very handy even if you will never use sophisticated regular expression syntax.
• Regular Expressions: supports regular expressions
• It looks inside file contents: in contrast to the desktop search apps mentioned in the second paragraph above.
• You can easily exclude/include folder name or path matches from results
• Preview pane: displays the search results as found inside a file
• First instance or all instances: when your searched text is found inside a file, the program can list the first instance where it was found only as an entry in the list of results or it can list the same file multiple time showing all instances of the found text inside that file.
• Does not search/index files in the background: all processing is performed on-demand. It does not create databases and representations of your hard drives.
• Portable: no-install zipped version available for download.

Wish list (or how this program can be even better)

• The ability to switch searching inside files on/off: sometimes I just want to search for filenames and I do not want to search inside a file; I wish there was a simple checkbox I could use to switch searching file contents on/off.
• To not pester me about updates if I am offline: currently, if I use this offline I get a message that it wasn’t able to check for updates.

The verdict: as a replacement for Windows’ built in search function this is an excellent option. I particularly like the versatile filtering and the fact that it can search inside files.

The program has some very cool filtering options for filtering (including/excluding) file types even if you don’t know regular expression syntax. And although I personally am not a regular expressions expert I like that they are supported and that I could put together a sophisticated query if I need to. Recommended.

Version Tested: 1.8.3

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista (x86/x64), Windows 7 (x86/64), 2000 SP4, 2003 and 2008.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 390K).

I am interested in the larger question of the different ways we request and consume information, and often think about the many different ways that RSS feeds are delivered and read, which is how this post was borne.

1- Using a web-based reader [Google Reader]: probably the most successful of the many free web-based RSS aggregators, Google Reader is the one I use to handle the many dozens of RSS feeds I subscribe to. The advantage of using a web based reader is, of course, the ability to access your RSS feeds from anywhere (say from a computer terminal at your local library), or even from a mobile device such as an iPhone.

Google Reader offers the ability to organize feeds in categories and tags and supports multimedia feeds such as podcasts. But what I like about Google reader is that it will maintain a history of RSS subscriptions that is preserved long after the original feed has moved on (i.e. you can see the backlog/history of an RSS feed previous to the latest 20 stories that a feed will typically display at any one time). Another unique feature is the option to “star” an RSS entry and have Google Reader broadcast your starred items within your very own RSS feed, which is a great way to filter out just the stuff you are interested in (and share your ’starred items’ RSS feed with others or on a widget on your site if you like). Instructions on how create a “starred items” feed in Google reader here. Also note that Google Reader also provides the ability the follow other users that use it and/or to share news items amongst users.

Alternative: Bloglines is another web-based aggregator option that is excellent.

2- Using a desktop aggregator [RSSOwl]: I’ve used many local freeware RSS clients, but the open source and multiplatform RSSOwl is my favorite (available for Windows/Linux/Mac). One feature I particularly like is its sophisticated, multi-criteria searches which you can actually save for later use. For example you could search for the terms “freeware PDF” and specify which feeds you want it to search in (say, only in 4 feeds) as well as where you want it to search (say, in just the headline, or the entire text). Finally you can save the search so it becomes an item in the sidebar alongside all the other feeds, and gets updated with new search results as new feeds are downloaded.

RSSOwl also supports tagging (which it terms adding “labels”) and will let you organize your RSS views using many different criteria (by date, by author, by category, by topic, by state, by “stickiness”, by label, by rating, or by feed). It also supports the so-called “river of news” viewing style where it will aggregate stories bases on date irrespective of the feeds they belong to. The other thing I like about RSSOwl is that it supports ATOM newsfeeds, which some clients strangely miss). It also can display RSS updates as they come in in the system tray area.

Two things I would love to see are (a) better support for Podcasts and multimedia feeds, and (b) an interface that is a little more user friendly; still, RSS Owl is definitely my favorite local RSS client.

3- Using a desktop widget [Klipfolio]: at one time it seemed that everyone was clamoring to put widgets on your desktop, from Google desktop to Yahoo widgets to Microsoft desktop search (and not forgetting Vista’s internal widgets). But my favorite freeware widget engine by far is Klipfolio, which manages to combine an excellent user experience with low resource utilization on your PC (and offers a wide range of powerful widgets to boot). Klipfolio is a winner when it comes to the coolness factor alone. And aside from RSS feeds, its also a great way to put Facebook, stocks, weather, and other information on your desktop (assuming you want all those things to lay claims on your attention bandwidth at all times ).

Klipfolio can dock to the side of your screen or be displayed as a floating window. You can click on an RSS item to view it in the browser or hover over it to view the story, in-place, as a hovering tooltip (see screenshot).

4- As tabs on the edge of your desktop [Stick]: Stick is a nifty freeware app that allows you to place all sorts of information (such as notes, folders, and RSS feeds) within tabs on the side of your screen (see screenshot). It will also optionally display real-time notifications of incoming feeds in the system tray area.

What’s different about tabs, of course, is that unlike say desktop widgets they are less obtrusive and in-your-face, yet instantly and immediately accessible through a simple click. They can, in other words, be used to both organize information and de-clutter your desktop as well as make that information available at your fingertips simultaneously.

5- Inside a dockable area on your desktop [SideSlide]: similar in concept to “Stick” above, SideSlide delivers a sort of virtual desktop that you can dock and undock in the top of your screen, and where you can place many different things including notes, shortcuts, “virtual” containers that point to actual folders, and RSS feeds.

SideSlide’s dockable interface presents another interesting option for making information instantly available within a couple of clicks yet being able to keep it out of your way when you don’t want it. The interface takes a little bit of getting used to and is a little clunky, and the RSS function provides options such as searching and tagging, among others.

6- As post-it sticky notes [Note Mania] : I was considering a review of a freeware sticky notes program a few weeks ago called Note Mania. I didn’t end up writing one (although I probably should have, as it is a really good one), but what struck me as being really unique and original was the option to display RSS feeds as sticky notes on your desktop (see screenshot).

Just imagine: you log into your PC and the RSS feeds you subscribe to are displayed as sticky notes on your desktop. You can then delete the stories you are not interested in and either click on the ones you want to read or simply keep them as desktop sticky notes to remind you to read them later on.

7- Embedded into your wallpaper [Chaos Wallpaper]: this program will embed RSS feed stories into your active desktop. Feed items can be clickable as well as scrollable through the on-screen slider on the right, and will update/refresh your feeds periodically. If you know a bit of HTML you can tweak the CSS stylesheets in order to modify the way that feeds are displayed on the desktop.

Note that aside from this functionality Chaos Wallpaper also functions as a very competent wallpaper changer.

8- As scrolling stock-tickers across your screen [EasyDeskTicker]: EasyDeskTicker displays your RSS feeds as horizontally scrolling news-tickers reminiscent of the scrolling stock and/or news tickers that are displayed on TV and even in some public venues. It allows you to add any number of news-ticker streams, to place them anywhere on screen, and to customize their behavior and speed, their color scheme as well as the size of the fonts, etc.

I would say that this is one of the most versatile and powerful stock-ticker type RSS feed readers out there, and is visually very smooth and problem-free. Note, however, that this program is free for private use only (vs. commercial). Also note that the way it works is each horizontal ticker you add has its own options dialog, which at first I didn’t realize and caused me some confusion.

9- As email in your Inbox [FeedMyInbox]: if you prefer to receive email notifications rather than subscribe to RSS feeds, FeedmyInbox is a free web service that can receive RSS feeds for you and automatically email them to an address you specify. Please note, however, that many sites (such as this one) offer the option to subscribe to both RSS feeds or to email notifications, so in theory for many sites you will not need the FeedMyInbox service. However, if a site does not offer email notifications, or if you like its RSS feed better than the emails that it offers (and I know that for example that for Freewaregenius the emails are very abbreviated) then FeedMyInbox may be for you.

If you know of other interesting ways to access RSS feeds using free software or services please share in the comments section.

If you use Outlook, like I do at work, you may frequently want to keep it running in the background in order to get email and other notifications as-they-occur. Fine and dandy, except if it has to be running all the time, you may want Outlook to at least be out of the way, neatly tucked away as an icon in the system tray rather than cluttering up the taskbar. Strangely, however, Outlook by default does not have a minimize to tray option, which is where HideOutlook comes to the rescue. More notes on this one below:

• Minimizes Outlook to system tray: interestingly, there will be two icons in the system tray, the minimized Outlook icon, and the HideOutlook icon (which also looks like an Outlook icon).
• Launch common tasks: right click on the HideOutlook icon to launch common tasks such as new emails, notes, appointments, tasks, etc.
• Memory consumption: about 10 megs, which is quite small but seems like it could have been less.
• Optionally starts with Windows
• Also available for Outlook Express (see links below)

The verdict: HideOutlook provides a function which should have been included in Outlook, and once you start minimizing Outlook to the system tray you will not want to go back. Note that another way to minimize Outlook (or any app) to the system tray is by using Trayconizer, but HideOutlook is certainly easier to set up and provides extra functionality (it is also more straightforward in terms of recommending to other people).

Version Tested: 1.0.18

Compatibility: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP; probably Vista as well (please confirm if you have Vista). I tested with Outlook 2007.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 105K). Go here for HideOE for Outlook Express.

Do you know what you spend the most time on when you’re using your computer? For example, you may want to know how much time you spend checking and responding to email vs. the amount of time you spend on doing “real work” (vs. the amount of time you spend randomly browsing the internet). Recently I’d been thinking about the amount of time that I spend doing research online (a lot) compared with the amount of time that I am actually working on creating something, whether its my deliverables at work or creating actual posts for this blog.

Which is why I am now running ManicTime. Here are more notes this program:

• The User Interface: is divided into a day view and a “statistics” view where you can view a range of dates together. Four timelines are simultaneously visible in the day view (Computer Usage, Applications, Browsing, and Tags). Clicking on any of these will change the type of information that is displayed on the bottom half of the screen. Not that you can (a) click on any colored chunk in any timeline to zoom into that information, and (b) you can select any range with the mouse to hone in on that. ManicTime uses color coding for similar items listed in the data section, which makes it easy to work with these.
• Tagging: is a great way to organize information in a way that makes sense to you. For example you can create tags such as “Project A”, “Project B”, “Work”, “Personal”, or even, say “Procrastination” or “Research” or whatever… anything that makes sense. You can right click on any colored chunk on any timeline to apply a tag to it. You can also check items within the data table on the lower half of the screen then click the “Add Tag” button on the top left. Kind of unintuitive at first, but works.
• Charts: in the “statistics” tab, you can add any element (from the Computer Usage, Applications, Browsing, or Tag timelines) and chart it against other elements. Very cool.
• Filtering: in the “Day” tab, type straight into the “Filter” box on the bottom of the screen to filter. Or otherwise check the boxes next to the individual entries, move the mouse to the “Summary (Selection)” section on the right hand side, and right click “filter by this group”. Click on the “Clear” (next to the filter box) to unfilter.
• Off the record: right click on the “ManicTime” icon in the system tray and select “off the record” to manually tell the program to stop recording.
• Exporting data: to CSV, is possible. Select a specific date range or “all”. Note that the “table” tab in the statistics section is what’s exported, so make sure to add as much (or as little) data detail to that as you want.

The verdict: This is the kind of program you simply let run in the background and only interact with once it has had the time to collect sufficient data, once a week or so. It can provide a great deal of information; however, whether this info is useful and/or insightful largely depends on you, the user, and what you want to get out of it.

What I like is that allows so much control over the data and collects data with such granularity as every single URL you have visited. I would say that interacting with the data can be somewhat confusing though, esp. filtering and tagging (which is why I describe them in detail above). The other drawback is the memory usage which, at approx 46-55 megs on my machine, may be a little too resource intensive on some machines.

Still, this is a very mature program and what it does ManicTime does an excellent job. The breadth and sophistication that this program has built into it is commendable and honestly quite surprising, and certainly is one of the best free programs of its kind. Recommended.

ManicTime Video Tutorial, Part 1:

For more tutorials, see the links below, or go to the Tutorials section on the program home page.

ManicTime Video Tutorial, Part 2
ManicTime Video Tutorial, Part 3

Version Tested: 1.2.1.0

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 4.81 megs).

This program will let you view/download stock data in real time and define portfolios of stocks and monitor their activity and profit/loss; but the WOW-inducing feature is the ability for users to define their own "Stock Indicators" and to have the program automatically deliver alerts based on these. For example, you can tell JStock to alert you by SMS if it finds a stock price that’s at the highest its been for the past 6 months. This may not sound too exciting if you just have one or two stocks that you are interested in, but JStock will do this for hundreds of stocks that you might want to monitor and define in its database. Here are more notes on this program:

• How it works: the main "Real Time Info" tab displays a list of stocks that you can monitor. Although it is pre-populated when you launch the program, note that you can delete stocks from the list and add just the ones you find relevant. Also note that you can select the country of interest and download the entire list of stocks for that country, which is very convenient. If your stock is somehow not showing you can add it to the database individually. JStock will now download price changes in real-time for these, and will even chart . Once you have your list, sorting by column headers can be a great help. I would say, however, that the list is in need of more filtering options (see my wish list below)
• Charting: right click on an individual stock and click "History" to receive an instant 10-year chart for the stock in question showing both stock prices and trade volume. You can also request a candlestick chart. You can limit the range of charted data by simply drawing a rectangle over the time period you are interested in with the mouse.
• Alerts: once you set up your desired "Stock Indicators" (see below) JStock can deliver SMS, Email, or system tray alerts based on these. SMS alerts are 100% free (you need to set up a Google Calendar account and register your mobile number; more info here). Alerts can be sent for stocks in your "real time" list, for an entire country’s stock market, for a particular board such as the NYSE, for a unknown "industries" (I am not sure exactly how JStock comes up with these), or, perhaps most useful, for the stocks that are user-defined in your database (choose "user-defined" industry for this one).
• Stock Indicators: JStock allows you to create your own indicators and use these to generate alerts. A visual editor is built into JStock that allows you to create these without any programming skills; however, it helps to know what you are going after . I simply re-created the indicator that was described in the help section and it was apparent to me just how powerful and versatile these indicators could be. The image to the right shows an alert that will be triggered when the stock’s current last price is the maximum it has been for the past 14 days. Very cool!
• Portfolio Management: this is where you can record transactions that occur on a list of stocks and keep track of your profit and loss. I did not really use this, but I imagine that it would be extremely value added
• Chatting: I was not able to find anyone to chat with; either there were no users online or I set it up incorrectly (although the set-up seemed super easy).

Wish list:

• Tagging: it would be great if you could create custom tags and associate them with stocks (perhaps in the user-defined stocks database entries), and then use these later for filtering/grouping, for alerts, or other operations.
• Filtering: I found it strange that are no means to isolate a stock or group of stocks in a list and view these in isolation. You cannot even type in a stock ticker symbol and filter it out from the list. What would be tremendously value-added is if you could filter each column Excel-style using certain criteria (e.g. only if the Chg% is larger or smaller than a certain value, etc). Of course you can currently create Stock Indicators and filter lists that way, but it would be so much more user-friendly to be able to filter on-the-fly.
• Downloading: ok so I charted the past 12 months for stock x; now can I please download these into CSVl? A strange omission.
• Chart range pre-sets: as in "the past week", "the past 1 month", "2 months", "1 Year", etc., to be selected from a dropown. Another very strange omission.
• Pre-defined indicators: it would be cool if the program with a few "clever" or value added indicators pre-defined, to get people started with indicators.

The verdict: this program one of the best in its category. It could use a streamlining of the user interface to make it more user-friendly, but it makes up for that in the power that it has under the hood and the sheer ambition of its covered functionality. Occasional or regular investors alike will find this program very useful and value added. Highly recommended!

Version Tested: 1.0.4i

Compatibility: Windows/Linux/Mac/Solaris

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 16.5 megs).

If you’re in the market for a simple yet versatile task management software check this one out. uTodo is simple to learn and versatile/powerful enough to accomodate many different styles of organizing to-do’s. It also has a very interesting function whereby your tasks can be instantly displayed as sticky notes hovering on your desktop.

For this review I am going to list my top 10 favorite features about this software followed by the 2 items on my wish list (yes I’ve been watching too much David Letterman!)

Top 10 things I like about this program:

1. Allows you to organize your items BOTH by lists and by tags. Lists could be something like “Project X”, “Deferred Actions”, “Future Projects”, “Personal Errands” or some such, and tags could be anything such as “Work” or “Personal” or even “Project A”. It’s up to you to design these in the way that makes sense for you. The GTD template implements the GTD “context” concept as tags (e.g. “@Home”, “@Work”, “@Calls”, “@Email”, etc.
2. Tasks as Sticky-notes: right click to convert any task to a sticky note. The sticky note can be made to stay on top of other windows, and the size, color, font, and transparency are customizable. You can close it at will without deleting it from your tasks list.
3. Quick entry of items via keyboard and special syntax: it is possible to do this if you use an easy to learn special syntax, where any part is optional and seperated by a semicolon from other elements. For example, you can enter the following (without quotes): “+;8/18/2009;[@Work]Add Bounce Rate to dashboard”, which means that this is a high priority item (+), due on 8/18/2009, tagged “@Work”, and the task text is “Add Bounce Rate to dashboard”. Very cool once you get the hang of it. Note: if this is not your thing you can forgo it.
4. Easy filtering by LISTS or TAGS: simply click on the left sidebar. Another cool feature is the ability to “grab” a task and drag-and-drop it on the left sidebar to add to lists or tags.
5. The GTD template: all this is is (a) tags pre-defined as GTD-influenced contexts (at home, at work, etc), and (b) lists pre-defined in a GTD influenced scheme (including “Next Actions”, “Deferred”, “Waiting for”, and “Someday/Maybe”. What is conspicuously absent is the ability to enter items to get them off your mind and not worry about classifying them. To do this, you would probably simply add a list and call it “process these later” or something and it would serve the same function.
6. Forces you to assign a new task to a list: (this only applies if you have not already selected a list from left sidebar. Type in a new task and press enter and what happens? A dropdown appears right next to your cursor that allows you to scroll down and assign your newly created task to a list, which I think is a great idea. (See image to the right).
7. Sort items by clicking column headers OR Group tasks together (or both): clicking on a column header will sort your items by that column. In addition to this you can group your items so that all the items that belong to a list, tag, due date, or priority are displayed together no matter what column you sort by (the first screenshot above shows
8. Add notes to tasks: each task is also a note. The program recognizes links or emails that are entered and makes them clickable.
9. Lightweight: about 3 megs in memory. uTodo minimizes to system tray when closed and will consume only 1 meg when minimized. Note: minimize-to-tray on close can be changed in the settings if you don’t want it.
10. Portable: simply insert your USB and install the program there.

Wish list: two items that can make this program better

1. Forcing the user to assign a TAG to the task: this is similar to point #5 above relating to lists. It would be cool if this was OPTIONAL; i.e. can be enabled/disabled in the settings. To be done, of course, by automatically popping up the tag selection prompt once the user hits “enter”.
2. Expanding the search function: there is a filter function that your tasks list as-you-type. However, that it only looks at the text in the task itself; the text in any associated notes, tags, or lists is not scanned. It would be great if this were expanded to include both notes and text in the list and tags (even if it is easy to filter lists and tags by clicking on the left sidebar).

The verdict: what I like about this program is that it is very straightforward but also very versatile and can adapt to different styles of use (including a GTD-ish methodology if that is your want). The interface can take a little while to get used to but once that happens it is very easy to use.

[Thanks Peter for letting me know about this one]

Version Tested: 1.0

Compatibility: Windows Vista, XP, ME, 2000

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 1.31megs).

Do you need a directory comparison and synchronization program with a lot of features and options? If so then you’ve just found one of the best free programs in its class. Before I continue I will point out that for this review I will use a mock question-and-answer format where I pretend I am being interviewed by someone else

Q: You’ve said that this is one of the best directory comparison apps. Why do you like it so much?
A: I like that it supports so many advanced options. But there are three real reasons:

1. The interface: this program’s Graphical User Interface is just tremendous. It looks good and delivers a great user experience in the way the items are compared are presented visually, and each entry has a little button that can be used for individual on-the-fly syncing.
2. Supports multiple folder comparisons simultaneously: which means you can perform all your folder comparisons and synchronizations at once and be done with it. You can also save your sessions (which the program calls "configurations"), to quickly re-do the comparisons at a future point in time.
3. Can create automated "batch files" for folder syncing: these can be run from the command line, and will allow you to specify folder(s) to compare, rules for syncing, file extension filters, and other details (see image to the right).

Q: How does this program determine which files are different and which files are the same?
A: It lets the user decide whether it should compare the actual content of the files or whether to simply compare the size and date of files.

Q: Does it support 2-way synchronization?
A: Yes. It supports "Mirror syncs" (right folder will exactly match the left, no matter what’s in it), "Update syncs" (new/updated files will be copied to the right folder), and "Two-way syncs" (both sides will be changed to reflect the new or updated files that are found on either side). Deletions ca an be performed via the Recycle Bin, which gives the user recourse to go and salvage them if need be, and copy errors can be ignored if necessary as well.

There is a also a so called custom sync option where users can create their own syncing rules, but it does not seem to be active as of the version I tested.

Q: Is it possible to only compare certain file extensions, or specify extensions that should NOT be compared?
A: Yes. You can do either one of the above, i.e. specify what to include or specify what to exclude (see image to the right for an example where I am excluding ZIP, RAR and JPG files from processing). You can also use the context menu for some quick, on-the fly file extension filtering. It is also very easy to hide or show filtered items from the main display interface.

Q: You mentioned other "advanced options" that this program supports. Can you list some of these?
A: Supports filesizes larger that 4GB, no limitations on number of files, "delete before copy" to avoid disc space shortages with large sync operations, handling of cloned files (i.e. symbolic links or junctures), UniCode and Network support.

Q: So what’s the verdict? Any last remarks.
A: Excellent Program. I was looking for a program that can compare two folders (and subfolders) when I found this and it was so much more that I expected. I highly recommend it.

I also would like to mention that there is a portable version available. Simply download the zipped version and extract it where you want it, even on a USB drive.

Version Tested: 2.1 build July 3 2009 Unicode

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 1.3 megs).

How would you like fairly capable text editor that nonetheless sports a minimalist, uncluttered interface? This about sums this program up. It sets out to combine some good features with a Firefox-like experience (Tabs, search/replace/go-to-line bars, crash recovery, and the ability to save and load entire sessions and multiple documents simultaneously). More notes below:

• Tabs: honestly, an indispensable feature. Although I will say that the tabbed interface looks better in the Visa environment (screenshot above) than in XP.
• Syntax highlighting: for INI, XML, HTML, PHP, & Java. Also gives you the ability to change the color scheme for each of the supported languages (see image to the right).
• Firefox-style search/replace: find-as-you-type. See the top screenshot above.
• Go-to-line bars: another indispensable feature.
• Session management: if you work with a number of documents at once, and would like to get all of them loaded simultaneously, Caderno allows you to load/save a group of documents at once.
• Unicode support.
• Crash recovery.

The verdict: the internet is not lacking for excellent freeware text editors to replace Notepad. Two of my personal favorites are PSPad and Notepad++, packed choc-full of features and options to satisfy every audience. However, I will say that many text-editors, probably as a consequence of being the primary tools of the trade for developers and programmers are becoming a tad too complicated and/or feature intensive, at least for the most of us who are either not programmers or would prefer a clean, straightforward interface. If this describes you then you will probably like this program. Recommended.

Version Tested: 1.08

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 1.46 megs).

This article was borne out of a need to split a large 600 meg CSV file into several pieces that were no longer than 100,000 rows each for uploading into a client’s website. The main problem we faced in doing so was that it was impossible to load the file into tools such as Excel (or course), text editors, or even Access because doing so would invariably cause any of those apps to crash.

In these cases, it was possible to split the file using a freeware program called Gsplit, which processes the file sequentially without loading it into memory all at once. This posting will describe exactly how this is done.

A step by step guide:

• Background: I am going to describe an example whereby I split a file called “chunk.csv” into several pieces that are a maximum of 10,000 rows each. This same process will work on any type of text file (for example TXT, INI, LOG, BAT, DIZ, BAK, and QUE) and you can customize this process to exactly the number of rows you require for your use.

1. Download and install Gsplit. This is the program that will perform the operation and it is 100% freeware, even for commercial use.
2. Run Gsplit.
3. Click “Original file” in the left sidebar. Click on the “browse” button under “file to split”. Browse to and click on the file you want to split.
   
4. Click “Destination folder” in the left sidebar. Click on the “browse” button under “destination path” on the right. Browse to the folder where you would like your output files to be saved.
   
5. Click “Type and Size” in the left sidebar. This is where all the interesting stuff will take place. Click on “Blocked Pieces” icon. Next, from the dropdown select “I want to split after the nth occurrence of a specified pattern”; and from the dropdown under that “Split after the occurrence number”. Enter the number of lines you want to split underneath (10,000 in this case, but you can enter the value that you need). Lastly, make sure that the pattern to use for splitting is “0×0D0×0A” (without quotes). This value is the hex code for a carriage return, and it should be displayed by default.
   
6. Click “Filenames” in the left sidebar. In the “piece name mask” field enter “{ofw}_{num}{ore}”(without quotes). This will generate pieces with the original file extension and the original file names that look like “filename_1.csv”. Alternately, you could leave this alone altogether, go with the default generated names, and simply rename the extension to “.csv” (or whatever your original extension is) in Windows explorer.
   
7. Click “Other Properties” in the left sidebar. check “do not add tags to piece files”, This will ensure that no additional information will be added to your original data.
   
8. You’re now ready to split. Click on the “Split” button in the upper toolbar. Your file should be split within seconds.
   Once the splitting process is finished you will see the “Splitting log” screen. Click on the “Open the folder in Windows Explorer” link to instantly jump to the output folder.
9. Optional: save your splitting profile. If you are going to repeat this splitting process in the future you might consider saving these settings as a “profile” that can be loaded when you need it so that you do not have to go through these process again. To do so select “Save a Profile As” from the “File” Menu.

That’s it. Happy Splitting .

If you are in need of a simple yet powerful tool that can split, join, or extract PDF pages and/or provide a number of other editing options then look no more: PDFTools will likely be exactly what you are looking for. PDFTools offers an excellent range of PDF related editing functions, all but two of which worked beautifully in my testing of this program.

I will present quick review of the various functions below, but really all you need to do to grasp what this software can do is glance at the screenshot above. The only function that is somehow missing (and which to me would have been obvious) is the option to add page numbering to a PDF document; and considering this tool already allows you to stamp a message or image anywhere you like on your document I am guessing that they simply did not think of it. Here are more notes on the various functions:

• Performance: I mention this first because it is very notably fast. I tested all the functions using a 250-page text and image intensive PDF ebook and the tool zipped through all the functions.
• Splitting and extracting PDF’s: can save each and every page to its own file, split even or odd pages only, split after a certain page (or after each user defined number of pages), or simply extract a user-defined section/range of pages as its own PDF.
• Join multiple PDF’s: choose your files, re-arrange them if needed, and join. Can merge PDF documents that are portrait and landscape formatted together into a single document without hitch.
• Stamp a PDF: you can insert text or an image anywhere in the document in the background on every page. PDFTools offers placement presets, such as top-right or middle-center, or will allow you to specify x and y coordinates for the exact location you want your stamp to be. Works very well.
• Re-arrange a PDF: *didn’t work for me*. Or I should say that while reversing the order of the pages worked just fine, re-arranging multiple pages on a single page resulted in the top 15% of each page being inexplicably shaved off. If it had worked it would allowed the re-arranging of 2, 3, or 4 pages to fit on a single page (for example for printing purposes to save paper). A handout option whereby the program adds a column on the right for not taking purposes worked very well though.
• Encrypt a PDF: allows you to define user privileges, such as printing, degraded printing, the ability to copy, change content or annotation, and others (see screenshot to the right). Note that you do not have to password protect your file even as you change user privileges.
• Decrypt a PDF: i.e. decrypt it by providing the password, not by cracking it. This developer’s website reports that this feature is broken in v1.3 and that it will be fixed. Mind you it has been a few years since this version was released in 2006.
• PDF Creator: creates PDFs from XML files; to quote the website, it “allows you to create a PDF document by specifying structure in a XML document”. More information on this here. For myself I didn’t delve much into this feature.

Wish list:

• Auto numbering: that empty space on the main interface is just begging for “automatic numbering” to be added there.
• An update with some of the aforementioned issues fixed. The program has not been updated since 2007.

The verdict: the closest thing I have to a criticism is that in order to use PDFTools you need to know ahead of time exactly the pages or page ranges you want to edit (i.e you will need to inspect your PDF’s using a PDF reader first). This is undoubtedly not a big issue given that PDFTools does not purport to be a reader (and offers so much powerful functionality for free), but I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will see a free visually-based PDF editing swiss-army knife style tool at some point (in the style of PDF Split and Merge).

But wishful thinking notwithstanding, I would say that all in all this is a very nice tool for PDF editing with an excellent range of functions. It is very similar to previously mentioned PDFTK Builder although I slightly prefer the user experience that PDFTools provides.

[Thanks to reader Anand for suggesting this review].

Version Tested: 1.3

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 2.76 megs).

Let me say from the start that this is without a doubt the best program in its class and at any rate the best freeware splitting program that I have ever seen.

I first started looking for a file splitting program when faced with the following problem: a colleague of mine had to split a 600 meg CSV file so that it could be uploaded into a customer’s database. These individual pieces, however, could only be a maximum number of rows each, and the integrity of the CSV files had to preserved. Our first inclination was to open this file using a text editor, MS Access. This, however, proved impossible: the file was way too large (at 21 million rows) and was simply impossible to read as a "normal" file. It was even impossible to split using Textwedge, a text-splitting app that I’d previously written about.

This is where Gsplit came to the rescue; unlike the other methods mentioned, Gsplit is able to process your desired file without trying to load the file into memory first. Aside from splitting files by specific-sized pieces or number of desired pieces (which many programs can perform), Gsplit is able to split files using the occurrences of a pattern or by number of lines per file (the pattern in the latter case being simply the occurrence of carriage returns). Thus we were finally able to split the file quickly and easily without crashes or problems, and without needing to load the entire file all at once into memory to do so.

Here are more notes on this program:

• More on splitting: in addition to what’s already mentioned above it is interesting to know that (a) Gsplit can span pieces across external media (i.e. it will wait for you to insert your disks or flash drive and create an appropriately-sized piece, then prompt for insertion of the next media, which could be very different in size, etc.). The other interesting thing is that the user can specify the size of output pieces uniformly in general OR manually specify the size of each individual piece.
• Split by number of lines: this is buried in the "I want to split after the nth occurrence of a specified pattern." section. Use the default pattern (0×0D0×0A) for splitting by individual lines.
• Note on splitting media files: while you can split and re-combine any kind of file (including media files) for distribution purposes, do not expect to be able to play the individual pieces (even if you rename the extensions). This is a general splitter not a media splitter.
• The user interface: is very well organized for a program with such a wide range of options; however I couldn’t help but wonder if it could have been made simpler and a bit more user friendly. This is especially true of splitting by number of lines (see above). They would have done 95% of users a big favor had they separated it from the "by pattern" splitting.
• Explorer integration: right click on any file and select "split with Gsplit"
• Merging: Gsplit can create a small exec (96K) that can re-merge output files, or can combine that into the first split piece so that the first piece is turned into an executable. In these cases other users do not need to have Gsplit installed to re-combine.
• Freeware for commercial use: and with no "donate" button that I could see on the program page you can donate to Freewaregenius instead .
• Profiles: allows you to save your desired splitting settings into profiles, so that you do not have to redefine them again if you need to perform the same kind of split again at a future point.
• Batch processing: you can select a number of files to split at once using the same settings.
• Customizing your output: you can add headers or footers to the resulting files; you can add blank space at the beginning or end of each piece; you can add tags (i.e. metadata) to the resulting pieces, you even customize the scheme used to name the individual file pieces, and you can even customize the message that the user will see when they run the self-uniting executable.
• Validation: Gsplit will perform three different integrity checks to ensure that your files are accurately combined.
• Portable: version available.

The verdict: did I mention this is the best file splitting utility I have ever seen? Oh, I guess I did .

Version Tested: 3.0

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 1.46 megs).

What you may not know is that aside from my interest in freeware I am an expert user of MS Excel: macros, VBA automation, the works . I was searching for information on Excel dashboards, which I needed for a project at work, when I stumbled upon this site.

Now I fully realize that the web is chock-full of excellent Excel sites that offer downloadable templates, but in terms of quality this site is definitely in the 90th percentile. This is because of the originality of some of the topics and templates on offer as well as the fact that they are presented with a good degree of simplicity (not to mention given away for free).

My top three five favorite templates:

1. KPI Dashboards with visualizations revisted. See a 6-part tutorial on how this was made starting with part 1 here. See the image to the right for a preview.
2. Using Maps in Excel. Very interesting. Can be customized for your particular needs.
3. Using data filters as chart filters. Simple and elegant.
4. Artistic dashboards in Excel. Very cool. Tutorial available here.
5. Tag clouds in Excel. If only for the sheer originality factor.

I hope Mr. Chandoo (a.k.a Pointy Haired Dilbert) does not mind my linking to the above downloads directly.

Go to the Pointy Haired Dilbert home page, or go straight to the downloads page.