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.
Read more »

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.
  Read more »

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).
  Read more »

Description: TreeDBNotes Free Edition is a hierarchical notes outliner program with a wide range of features, including organizing information in both tabs and tree structures, rich text editing, support for tables, images, and links, global search, and more.

I used this program as my primary hierarchical notes outliner more than a year ago but eventually abandoned it because it lacked some key features and languished without development for a long time. Needless to say I was intrigued to find that the developer recently released an update, and very pleasantly surprised with how mature this program has become. The new release is worth the wait; to get straight to the point: if you are looking for a full-featured, sleek, well designed freeware hierarchical not-taking program, TreeDBNotes Free Edition is one of the best options around. More info below:

• Organization: notes are organized two dimensionally in tabs and hierarchical folder trees. This is extremely important, as some notes programs only provide a single hierarchical folder option which can get very cumbersome to manage. Trees/folders can be easily managed from the right click menu (moved around the tree or into another tree, copied/pasted, sorted alphabetically, etc).
• Rich text editing: the editing capability provided rivals that of any major word processor.(e.g. text styles, justification, bullets, sub-bullets, numbering, text and background colors, paragraph formatting etc). One feature I really like is the shrink/grow font by one point function, familiar to MS Word users. Includes a nifty text manipulation tool that can change the case of selected text: uppercase/lowercase/first letter/first word.
• Links creation: this is one of the coolest features which is surprisingly absent in many freeware notes programs; the ability to link to a URL (online or locally), link to another note or bookmark within TreeDBNotes, or link to a local file. I am using this feature to link to web pages that I save locally using the free version of Local Website Archiver, and it works really well. It also enables you to use TreeDBNotes as a versatile bookmark manager of sorts.
• Tables support: for HTML and Word tables. Tables are easily created and manipulated through the right click menu in a very intuitive manner. You can copy tables from a web page and paste straight into TreeDBNotes.
• Image support: images can be inserted into any page, or pasted from the clipboard. For some reason, though, when copying/pasting paragraphs from the internet that include images those images are not transferred (unless copied/pasted individually).
• Favorites and bookmarks: both can be accessed from the left hand pane (these are 2 different things). You can create a favorite out of any note (folder or node in the tree structure) in order to jump to it from anywhere. Bookmarks, however, are anchors that can be used to jump to a specific location within the text, and are visible only within the tree/tab you are working with. (To bookmark: right click > insert > bookmark).
  Read more »

Description: ALToolbar is a free Internet Explorer toolbar that offers a number of very useful functions straight from the browser, including an internet cleaner, advanced find, automatic site login with online password storage, online bookmark management , screenshot capture for websites, quick access to multiple search engines, a flash ad blocker, control by mouse gestures, and a few others.

Let me be clear first that I usually do not like toolbars and try to avoid them. I especially do not like toolbars when they offer functions and features that have little value-added, and then try to force you to use their own custom search page. The only toolbar that I have previously recommended on Freewaregenius is the Google Toolbar (see this post). ALToolbar, however, offers a number of functions with high value added and I have no qualms giving it my highest possible endorsement.

The reason I recommend ALToolbar is because it brings together a terrific collection of browser tools in one place. And although it does have it’s own customized search page, the last used search engine (e.g. Google or whatever other engine you like) will be used as default, or you can define your own default search provider.

Note that of the many functions that ALToolbar offers, two of these (the automatic password login ALPass and the Bookmark manager) actually store your information online. The idea behind this is to enable you to manage your bookmarks or site logins on one computer (say, at home), and then access these from your work computer for example such that you will always have access to the will always be in sync. These are discussed in mroe detail below. Here’s a list of all the functions ALToolbar has to offer:

• The user interface: the toolbar generally looks good but what is cool is that it allows you to maximize it (so that a text label is displayed next to each button) or minimize it so that only the icons appear. The latter option is very useful if you are interested in minimizing your browser toolbar clutter.
• Customizability: ALToolbar allows you to pick and choose in terms of the buttons you would like to display within the toolbar and/or the functions that you would like enabled. If you do not care about any offered function(s) you can disable it and use the remaining ones.
  Read more »

Description: WordFlashReader is an open source program that promises to increase your reading speed (of electronic texts) by multiple factors, as well as increase your comprehension of them. It will flash the words within a text in sequence (individually or in chunks) on the screen in large font, with pauses for punctuation. WordFlashReader can open and display multiple text and ebook formats.

I am 36 years old, and one of the facts of life which I have come to terms with is the following: I will never read all the books that I would like to read. In fact, I will most likely never read all the books that I have already purchased, hoping that I might someday get to them. Unlike some people (my wife, for example, who can zip through books) it simply takes me too much time to read a book; there is simply too much thinking, reflection, and daydreaming involved for me to get through texts as efficiently as I would like.

Which is why this program piqued my interest as soon as I lay eyes on it. What WordFlashReader does is open and display electronic texts such that only one word or a chunk of text is displayed in large font on a dark background at any one time. The flashing word(s) move through the text in quick succession, with some considerable degree of control allowed the user in terms of display speed, size of the displayed chunk, and the behavior of the text with regard to punctuation. This system of reading is supposed to have the following effects:

• Comfort: it is supposed to be more comfortable on the eyes than the normal method of reading. Although it takes a bit of getting used to at first, I can see that how this might be the case.
• Efficiency: because the stream of words served is constant and uninterrupted, the user is forced to keep with the pace, although he/she can control the display speed. If you are going to use the program you will be forced read in a constant and efficient manner.
• Comprehension: the program pauses for punctuation, which is supposed to increase comprehension.
  Read more »

Description: Desktop Sidebar is a Vista-style sidebar widgets engine with minimal system resource consumption. It supports a wide range of applets/widgets that can give you access to a wide variety of information from your PC or from the internet straight on your desktop. Works on Windows 2000, 2003, XP and Vista.

There are a number of free sidebar/widgets programs out there, of which I will mention my favorite, Klipfolio, and the well-known Yahoo widgets. Desktop Sidebar is another free option that has a number of really good reasons why you should use it; here are the top 5 reasons I could think of (in ascending order):

• Reason#1: Desktop Sidebar’s Outlook widget. If you use Outlook, you will find this widget really useful as it will display your Outlook info (received emails, calendar, tasks, notes, etc.) on the desktop without having Outlook open in the background and hogging system resources. I have tried a number of Outlook-on-desktop programs and the couple or so I tried require Outlook in the background, so this is good news indeed. (Klipfolio, in contrast, does not have a good Outlook widget).
• Reason#2: the range of available applets. Is really excellent. Aside from the usual staples (such as image display, clock, weather, stock tickers, google, desktop search etc.) it has some sophisticated applets such as a clipboard viewer, an FTP uploader, Miranda IM, a website-monitoring thumbnail applet, media player contol (including Itunes), desktop search, a POP3 email checker, a gmail plugin, and a good number of others.
• Reason#3: the "Capture Panel" plugin. This applet allows you to take any program that may be running on your desktop and "widgetize" it. For example, I was able to imbed Pidgin (my freeware IM client of choice) into Desktop Sidebar, although admittedly it did look crowded and out of place, but you see my point.
• Reason#4: memory consumption is generally low (approx 19 megs upon installation with the default plugins running). However, note that with every plugin installed the memory use will go higher, so remove all plugins that you do not care for or particularly need.
  Read more »

Description: Enso Words is a free program that offers a number of text-related functions that can be performed universally within any application. These include a spellcheck, word definitions, thesaurus, word and character counts, uppercase/lowercase conversions, instantly Googling selected text, and others.

"Enso Words is part of the Enso group of applications, a collection of task-oriented software that employ the same basic interface and method of interaction with the user. They are designed to perform simple tasks - tasks that might otherwise interrupt your workflow or require shifting your focus from your work- quickly and easily. Here are more notes on Enso Words:

• The User Interface: first select a text or word, then press a hotkey (the caps lock button) that brings out a kind of command prompt overlayed on top of all open windows in the top left corner of the screen. Here, you can type in a handful of commands that perform the available functions. The program will immediately offer several "autocompleted" commands that are filtered as you type, making it very easy to hone in on the task that you seek (see first screenshot above).
• Available tasks: include spell check, word definitions, thesaurus, word count, character count, uppercase selected text, lowercase selected text, Google selected text, calculate (for on-the-fly calculations) and even cut/copy/paste text for apps that do not support these natively.
• Online tasks: note that the word definition and thesaurus require an internet connection and will in fact open the answers.com webpage as reference. The spellchecker, thankfully, is local.
• The spell check: is performed within a window that overlays itself on top of your application, and is limited to English, at least at the moment. Unrecognized words are highlighted in yellow and left-clicking these will display a dropdown containing suggested spellings that you can choose. You can also add unrecognized words to the database. The spell check is powerful and works really well; one glitch, however, is that it can, at times, mess up your text’s formatting (this happened both in MS Word and Post2blog, the program I use to write my blog postings).
  Read more »

Description: "MojoPac Freedom" is the free edition of the MojoPac desktop virtualization software. It allows you to install a Windows XP environment on a portable hard drive, Ipod, or other device that, when plugged into any PC, behaves as a self-contained Windows XP environment that can have the programs that you need installed and the desktop customizations that you are used to.

Picture this: you’re off to a 7-day visit to your in-laws over Christmas, during which time you would like to do some overdue graphic design work with GIMPshop, create a few blog postings using your favorite blog-publishing program, and perhaps put in a few hours of gameplay with that latest MMORG that you’re into. More importantly, you also need to be checking your email locally for work with Outlook as well as have all of your archived emails for reference just in case. Oh, and you’d also like to be able to move music and video in and out of your Iphone (i.e. you need Itunes installed as well).

For a scenario as described above it seems obvious to take a laptop, as it’s just not practical for you to be installing all this software on your in-law’s computer. However, there is in fact another option: use MojoPac to create a virtual PC set-up with all the programs and data that you need stored on a USB drive or even on your Ipod, and then simply plug that device into any computer to instantly get all of your programs along with an entire virtual PC environment on demand.

One of the nicest things about this software is the ease of setting it up. You have to create an account at the MojoPac site, which involves picking a username and password and submitting a working email, but you can actually do that from the installation process itself. The process takes a mere few minutes at the end of which your new mobile-device borne virtual PC will up and running (see installation section below).

My experience with MojoPac: I tested this software by installing it first on a 2-Gig USB stick as then on a 12-GIG partition on a portable USB drive. Here are my notes on this program:
Read more »

Description: Input Director is a free program that enables two or more computers connected on a network to share a single mouse and keyboard input, allowing for dragging a mouse pointer across multiple screens. This easy to set-up software also enables the sharing of clipboard contents, including copying/pasting files and folders across multiple computers.

If you work with multiple computers at once that are connected on a network it will in most cases make sense for you to control these computers through a single mouse/keyboard. Input Director allows you to do just this, with the added advantage of sharing clipboard contents and freely transferring files and folders across computers as if they were in fact a single unit.

Input Director is not the only freeware program to do this, but it may just be the simplest to set-up. Here are some notes on this program:

• Control: once set up, you can control a the mouse pointer and/or cursor either by using the mouse and keyboard from the main "Master" computer as well as the mouse/keyboard on the individual computers themselves. It is possible to have the cursor wrap around in a 360 full circle style.
• Clipboard: simply copy something into the clipboard on one computer, move the mouse to another app on another computer, and paste. If you want to be able to copy files and folders you will have to allow that first (it is turned off be default). Do this by going to "global preference" tabs on both computers and unchecking "exclude default C$ D$ shares for file copy pastes".
  Read more »