Description: Freezer is a free, portable program that can download mp3s from some song sharing sites that such as Imeem, Deezer or jiwa.fm that use anti-leeching protection to prevent song downloading.

If you are familiar with the music sharing sites mentioned above you’re probably thinking that Freezer is very good news indeed. This program was apparently written to prove a point; to quote their site “[it] was built as a proof-of-concept to demonstrate that whatever effort is made to prevent songs downloading, those sites are still very unsecure concerning the way musics are diffused”. It continues …”the [proof of concept]will probably be extended to more sites, as it is based upon an inherent flaw they all have in their streaming scheme.” More notes on this program:

• How to use: you need to (1) start the program and keep it open, (2) change your browser proxy to the one specified by the program (more on this here and below), and (3) to surf over to any of the supported sites and launch a song. A “save file” dialog will appear whenever a song is about to be played, allowing you to save (or not). More info on how to use here.
• Portable: no installation. Just unzip and run.
• Managing proxies: if changing your browser proxy manually doesn’t seem very practical, you might want to take a look at IE proxy changer or Advanced Proxy Manager (for Internet Explorer) or QuickProxy for Firefox.
• Supported sites: Imeem, Deezer, and Jiva.fm are documented; however, the instructions in the program dialog itself read “surf on your favorite HD radio site … the program will do the rest”. Not sure which other sites Freezer will work with, but I did try it with Last.FM and Pandora and it did NOT work; moreover it does not work with non-encrypted sites that do not use anti-leeching protection such as MixTurtle, Songza, etc (I guess since the program wanted top prove a point, there was no point to prove there ). Read more »
  

Description: In this posting I am going to highlight five FREE excellent Internet Explorer extensions that you never knew existed: (1) RCGoogle, (2) IECopySelectedLinks, (3) Find as you type, (4) Favorites Search, and (5) Web Archives Viewer.

Internet Explorer may not have the breadth of plugins that exist for Firefox, but it does have many extensions that enhance its functionality and that can greatly increase your productivity. IE extensions, it seems, always have much less .. visibility .. than those for Firefox; in this posting I present to you five must-have Internet Explorer extensions which you never knew existed (but will be very happy to learn about):

1. RCGoogle: the name is misleading, as it suggests that this is yet another right-click-on-a-word-to-search-Google extension. In fact RCGoogle does offer this functionality, but what makes it cool is it’s other function: “Open selected URL”.

Occasionally you might come across URLs (such as hxxp://www.yahoo.com) that have been purposefully (or unpurposefully) distorted or changed that normally would require fixing and copy/pasting into the address box. RCGoogle allows you to simply right click on the URL (or what looks like one ) and choose “open selected URL” in the context menu to open it. It is quite powerful as it can handle a wide range of URL problems. Check out the following examples, all of which it can handle without a hitch: (http) hxxp://www.yahoo.com; (www) w*w.yahoo.com; (typos) htp://yahoo.com; (whitespaces) http://www. yahoo.com; (or a combination of the above) h**p:’/***.yahoo .com. Of course you can use RCGoogle to open non-maligned URLs as well. Works for http and ftp URLs both.

I like this program so much that I am awarding it the very sought after Freewaregenius Pick award. More info on this program here; you can download the version I tested here.

2. IECopySelectedLinks: this little extension allows you to select a bunch of text that contains links to multiple URLs, then right-click “copy selected links” to copy all links to the clipboard (the text itself will not be copied). Very cool!

Visit this page to download (286K). This software from the same developers that brought you previously reviewed IESessions.

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Description: IESessions is a free Internet Explorer extension that enables the quick saving of your IE internet sessions (URLs from all tabs and windows that are open). Sessions can be saved locally, exported to a file for use on other computers or otherwise uploaded to the Amazon S3 storage service.

Have you ever been, say, working on a project or doing some research and had to shut down your computer and/or leave? You might have been inclined to quickly copy and paste the URLs of the web pages that you were using or you may have set out to quickly add all of those pages to your favorites (most likely never to be looked at again, buried in a heap of other unorganized favorites ).

IESessions can provide a much more practical and intuitive alternative, allowing you to quickly save your session in order to carry on where you left off at a later point on the same computer or others at a different location. Here are more notes on this program:

• How it works: simply click on the IESessions icon in the Internet Explorer toolbar or use Tools then IESessions from the file menu, then give your session a name (e.g. “Project A”) and save your session.
• What is saved: all of the URLs that are open (in all tabs and windows) are saved within a single session. Note that prior surfing history is NOT stored, and neither are any cookies and/or login information (you will have to re-login into any sites that require it).
• Managing sessions: you can expand your sessions and highlight individual URLs in each session to open or delete them, or you can load (or delete) the entire session with all the URLs contained in it. You cannot, however, move or drag and drop URLs from one session to another, which is a pity since this precludes using IESesssions as a bookmark manager of sorts.
• Adding IESessions to the IE toolbar: run the installer then launch IE; right click the command bar, select “Customize command bar” then “add and remove commands”, then add the IESessions button from the left pane to the list of
  available commands (on the right pane) in the placement you like. That’s it. Read more »
  

Description: Ammyy Admin is a free remote computer access tool that offers quick, easy, and reliable connections with nothing to install, no accounts to sign up for, and no technical configuration or messing with IP addresses and routers. It offers file transfers and desktop sharing, and can be used to connect with unattended machines.

I’ve written about remote access/desktop and file sharing programs similar to this in the past, but this one has the distinction of being the simplest and lowest-involvement in terms of the steps required before getting connected.

Have you ever been on the phone (or IM) with someone and wished that you could see their screen and/or access their computer or that they could see yours? I recently was helping a friend set up a Google Adwords campaign for his business and needed him to see what I was doing on my screen; however, I wanted something quick that would not require us to waste a lot of time registering accounts, installing software, and then spending more time trying to configure it on both ends. Ammyy Admin would have been perfect for such a situation. More notes on this program as follows:

• Ease of connecting: both users need to run Ammyy Admin, a 128K no-install
  executable. The program will display ID numbers for each machine. To access the other PC you will need the ID number provided on the other side; it’s literally as easy as pressing a button (on both ends). There are no accounts to register, no messing with IP addresses, no ports or routers to configure. The ID seems to be fixed per machine rather than per session, which means that, for example, your PC at home will always have the same ID and can always be accessed at will.
• Services: screen sharing, remote access of windows and applications, and if file system access is enabled, file sharing as well. For file sharing the person who is accessing the other machine can copy files back and forth straight to the hard drive of the PC being accessed.
• Performance: was actually quite good in that it got the job done competently, although other solutions I’ve written about (e.g. GBridge, Remobo) seem to offer faster performance overall.
• How it works: Ammyy Admin accesses public routers, but offers you the option to use private routers if you prefer. For the latter you will need to download and use Ammyy Admin’s sister product called Ammyy Router. Unlike some similar programs Ammyy Admin is not browser based.
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Description: Tidy Favorites is a free extension for Internet Explorer and Firefox that allows users to manage bookmarks visually as thumbnails that can be dragged and resized on a workspace, similar to icons on a desktop. It offers the ability to organize favorites within combination of tabs and folders, and provides a “drop stack” for quick, temporary bookmarking of URLs that you might want to check out then dispose of afterwards. Tidy Favorites can be installed portably.

If you are looking for a better way to manage favorites than the default bookmarking process that Internet Explorer and Firefox provide, check out Tidy Favorites. This program combines four concepts that make it much easier and more practical to work with your saved URLs, as follows:

1. Thumbnails: a bookmark is added as a visible thumbnail of the website, making it much more intuitive to work with (and much more pleasant) than the standard text link. Thumbnails can be resized manually at will and placed in the location that makes sense to the user.
2. Organize into tabs or folders or both: Tidy favorites provides a customizable workspace that can accomodate both tabs and folders, in effect providing a “3D” organizational structure where each tab can contain it’s own set of folders. This is much more flexible than the default 2D hierarchical structure that the browsers use.
3. Drop stack: this is an area to the right of the screen where URLs first appear (in thumbnail form) when you bookmark them. You can either drag and drop your new thumbnails into the proper tab or folder or simply use the drop stack as a temporary area for web pages that you want to look at at some convenient point in time but not add to your bookmarks collection.
4. Centralized bookmarking across browsers: Tidy Favorites works interchangeably in IE and Firefox both: if you use both browser your URLs that are saved in one browser will also instantly appear on the other.

More notes on this program as follows:
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Description: Split Browser is a Firefox plugin that can"split" your browser into multiple panels, enabling you to view multiple web pages simultaneously in the same Firefox window. It is useful in situations where you would like to be able to surf the internet using a part of the screen while maintaining another site, web mail service, or web app etc. visible in another part of the screen at the same time.

I first saw this plugin being used by a colleague at work who was using it to keep a page on display at all times in the lower part of the screen that displayed his "tickets" (we use a "ticketing" system in our office to assign tasks), while doing his normal browsing in the upper part of the screen.

Which of course prompted me to start thinking about other pages that someone might want to be able to see alongside their normal surfing activity, e.g: web-based email, streaming internet radio or music services such as Pandora, online to-do and productivity software like GTDAgena or Vitalist, online instant messaging services such as Meebo, online note-taking services, and, naturally, the various social networking sites, etc.

Of course it is possible to have something quite similar to what Split Browser does by arranging sperate Firefox windows around your screen (for example using a program such as WinSplit Revolution), but Split Browser does the job elegantly and seamlessly inside Firefox. Here are more notes on this program:

• Number of split browsers: You can add as many split browsers as you like and place them anywhere on screen (top/bottom/left/right). I had 6 sections going on at once at one point.
• How to create a split browser: right click on the tab or anywhere on the page and find the "split tab to" context menu. Or otherwise hover ove r the edge of the frame and a little arrow will appear on the side that will create a split browser window for you in that side of the screen.
• Synchronized scrolling: makes scrolling actions in any one window apply to all other split browsers which have this option enabled. Although this option appear in the main "split menu" I found that you have to enable it individually for each desired window for it to work.
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Description: TubeMaster Plus is a free tool that can download streaming video and audio files from almost any media sharing site, including sites with anti-leeching protection. TubeMaster Plus also can convert downloaded videos to several formats, offers a video search function across multiple video sources, and offers a downloadble audio mp3 search function.

[Review Updated 10/27/2008] This program is a tool for downloading videos/music/streaming media from video and music sharing sites. I have learned a lot more about this program since first publishing this review two weeks or so ago, hence this updated review. Note that my original review of version 1.3.1.4 which as of this writing has been updated to 1.3.1.5.

This program combines the following tools into a single product: Orbit Downloader for streaming media downloads, FFMpeg for video conversion, an IE based internal browser, and a some sort of internet searching resource for finding (and downloading) audio files on the internet and videos across multiple video sharing sites. This program has multiple pros and cons, which I will list as follows:

PROS:

1. Downloads media from sites that have anti-leeching technology: I tested TubeMaster Plus with Last.FM, Pandora, and Imeem and it worked beautifully! Note: this functionality is provided courtesy of the Orbit Downloader component of TubeMaster Plus.
2. Downloads various media formats: video and audio in multiple formats (see image to the right).
3. Does not install itself as a plugin inside your browser: instead uses it’s own internal multi-tabbed embedded browser.
4. Music search: can search the internet and find downloadable tracks. It works very well and I highly recommend it.
5. Downloads YouTube vidoes in "HD" mode: when browsing YouTube, TubeMaster Plus will ask whether you want to download the higher-resolution MP4 video file versions of your desired video if these are available. (Not only are these higher in resolution but they can be uploaded to Ipods easily without conversion).
6. Global video search: looking for a video? Try using TubeMaster Plus’s media search, which offers a "Global Video Search" that can search up to 100 video sharing sites simultaneously.
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Description: TED (Torrent Episode Downloader) is a free tool that can find episodes of almost any TV show for downloading using a torrent client. It’s database of torrent sources is updated periodically to include new shows, and the program allows users to search for and add any shows that are not listed.

This is an extremely useful and impressive tool that can make the process of finding and downloading your favorite shows very easy; TED brings an easy to use iTunes-store like interface to the world of torrent TV shows.

This program is particularly suited for average users who (a) do not want to wade through torrent search sites and get bombarded with dubious ads and popups, (b) do not have the time or inclination to be searching for torrent sources needed for downloading, and (c) would like a reliable and easy way to find just the episodes that they want to watch. Here are more notes on this program:

• Shows in the database: you can choose from dozens of shows that are listed (I counted 191, and more shows are being added continuously). For each entry TED will download information from the net about the show including an overall rating, etc. (see first screenshot above). A search box is provided that makes it very easy to filter the list by keyword and quickly find what you’re looking for. Despite the expansive list I was struck with the number of shows I could think of that were NOT there (although these can be added by the user - see "adding to the list" below).
• Episode selection: you can choose whether you would like (a) a specific (custom) episode that you are looking for, (b) the last aired show, or (c) to put in a request for TED to look out for the upcoming show. The program will display a list of available episodes as well as a gauge that indicates the "availability" (i.e. likelihood and/or speed of downloading).
• Torrent client: you will need a torrent client to download; TED will NOT download anything without one. I recommend uTorrent.
• Adding to the list: if you do not find the show you want listed you can easily add it yourself. All you need to do is simply type in the name of the show and (optionally) choose the season and episode number you want, if any, and TED will generate a list of feed sources for you. I successfully added "Clone Wars 2008" and "Man vs. Wild" (as an experiment for research purposes of couse; I didn’t actually download ).
• Filtering: you can filter the files that TED will list by size of the found file, no. of seeders, or keywords (for example "xvid","2008", or"ipod" in the torrent).
• Scheduling: imagine coming home from work to find that TED had initiated the download of the latest episode of the show(s) on your list. By default TED uses an online resource (EPguides) to determine when an episode will air and therefore when to start looking for it (the period it will wait between lookups is user defined). Or you can use a rules-based scheduler to tell TED exactly when to go out and search for new episodes (e.g. if you know the show will air on a certain day you might set TED to go out and look for it on or after that day). Scheduling assumes that the program will be running in the background, which is a good segue for the next point.
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Description: Remobo is free app that can connect computers instantly via VPN. Based on a P2P structure, it allows you to connect to and control your computer remotely, to access your files from anywhere, and to run any application between computers on top of Remobo. It also offers secure file shares via private BitTorrents as well as the ability to share your entire music collection online using Remobo and Opentape. Remobo is multiplatform Windows and Mac OSX.

Yet another foray into freeware VPN/screen sharing/file sharing apps (e.g. Mikogo, gBridge, TeamViewer, and Crossloop). I recently had an email exchange with one of the members of the team behind Remobo where I asked him what makes Remobo noteworthy, and would like to paraphrase the reasons he cited as follows:

• Instant: connect easily and instantly without the complex configuration that is needed with traditional VPN software. If you have internet access you will be able to connect.
• Secure: all traffic is secured using “industry standard encryption”. Any files/folders are shared using encrypted private bittorents (even your ISP cannot see what is being shared).
• P2P: Remobo uses a unique architecture built on P2P technology rather than a client/server model, which makes it (a) easy to install/launch, and (b) promises better performance.
• Share your entire music collection: the Remobo team provides a tutorial on how to use the open source Opentape in conjunction with Remobo to do this (note that you will need to install PHP/MySQL). Note that I did not try this personally.

Here are some observations on Remobo having installed and used it:
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Description: Gbridge is a free software that can connect multiple computers. It forms a VPN between multiple computers and provides remote computer access, folder synchronization, automatic folder backup, remote computer control and/or screen sharing, and chat. Gbridge can use Google’s Gtalk network to connect remote PCs and requires Gtalk (Gmail) accounts.

There has been a proliferation of free tools and protocols that aim to provide various remote connection services (e.g. Crossloop, Mikogo to name but two). These services will require the installation of some sort of desktop client locally and many will require the creation of user accounts in order to access a centralized network used for the connection. With the various protocols that these tools use, it may or may not be possible to connect in different settings depending on whether the different computers are behind firewalls, behind routers (whether or they have a public IP), and whether the tool/service offers a centralized network on their own servers. What is noteworthy about Gbridge is that it will try multiple ways to connect based on what will result in the best performance, but the lowest common denominator (if you will) will be connecting through the Gtalk network (a Gtalk/Gmail account is a requirement to use the service). Here are more notes on this software:

• You WILL be able to connect: Gbride will automatically figure out the best way to connect the various computers to provide maximum throughput and privacy; it will attempt to create a tunnel through NAT or firewall or if that is not possible it will connect through the Gtalk network. The user does not have to worry about complex technical configurations and the likelihood that you will achieve connectivity is high no matter what context your PC lives in; Gbridge, to quote their site “solves the real world naming and connectivity issues for almost all networks”.
• VPN for non-experts: see point above. Gbridge will allow any user to install, logon, and be on their way.
• Highly versatile: you can control which folders to share with which of your contacts and which users to require password authentication to access your shared folders, etc. You can also share an unlimited number of files, folders, and - interestingly - unlimited file size (I read somewhere about successfully sharing a 5 gig file).
• Wide range of services: will try to keep up with the terminology here. Share a file or folder with yourself or others (Secureshare), synchronize folders automatically across computers (AutoSync), backup files across computers (EasyBackup), view the screen and/or access remote computers (DesktopShare), chat with friends (Chat). Gbridge automatically generates thumbnails for media files, and allows for media streaming of shared media files without downloading first (LiveBrowse); also offers the ability to run 3rd party applications (e.g. FTP) over the VPN.
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