foobar2000 is certainly not the most visually striking audio player nor even is it the easiest to use but to my humble opinion foobar2000 has a bunch of amazing features that will make the difference and once you know them you'll forget about appearance and ease of use. Developed by Peter Pawlowski (an ex Nullsoft freelance contractor) for Windows based computers, this agile piece of freeware brings, above all, a remarkable sound quality, just to give an example of this I can tell you that the maximum theoretical capacity of the sampling rate and bit depth comfortably exceed the capacity of professional audio equipment, and let me tell you that I compared it with other well-known audio players and the quality difference is more than notable.

Regarding the visual aspect, foobar2000 features a minimalist interface and a highly modular design, you know, it is a common thing to see a sophisticated look in this kind of programs, sometimes sacrificing some functionality, however, foobar2000 is right the opposite, just a list where you can add the songs and play them back. You know what they say, all extremes are bad, and foobar2000 bets roundly on simplicity and functionality, however, a little tweaking and a little patience will show that you have a lot of interesting options being one of the most customizable and one of the most used by audiophiles or those who have high-end audio systems.

Some of the basic features in foobar 2000 include Unicode support, ReplayGain, native support for several popular audio formats with extensive metadata support, DSP filters. It also includes a tag editor to change all information for each of the tracks. But if standard features are not enough for you, foobar2000 can be extended with new components you'll find the in the application's site: statistics module, CD burning, file integrity checker, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

I can state without fear of being wrong that most of us have used Paint at least once. As simple as it is, the drawing tool included in Windows falls really short before other commercial graphics editing programs like Photoshop or Corel Draw. But, what if we put both worlds together in a single program? And what if we really get greedy and ask for it to be free?

Paint.NET is an amazing piece of freeware which is drawing the attention of more and more users who need to get fast, professional yet easy-to-use solutions for image and photo editing without getting lost in the complexity of other graphic editors like Adobe's. So, what is it that makes of Pain.NET such a powerful app? Well, the list of features and perks is really endless, but just to mention a few I can tell you that Paint.NET brings an innovative and easy to understand interface, layers support, unlimited undo and redo capabilities and an incredible capability to apply effects.

Paint.NET also comes with automated image optimization tools including color adjustment, red-eye removal and greyscale or sepia conversion, and you can also perform more advanced tweaks in a full manual way. An interesting detail is that when you have several images open you can have thumbnail preview. But, above all, what is more important is that Paint.NET can carry out all of its functions at really low resources consumption.

Of course there are a lot of other various solid and handy tools, you can check this article at HandyWare for further reading, and here for a list of novelties and bug fixes for the latest version. Read the rest of this entry »

IrfanView is an extremely useful image viewer and manager with a lot of features that allows you to visualize images, to play video and audio files, to carry out screen captures, presentations and a lot more. IrfanView's most outstanding characteristics are its agility, ease of use and low resources consuption. It puts functionality over beauty, being a clear example of a practical application that is beyond unnecessary flourishes and ornaments.

Another of its countless interesting functions is the capability to perform batch image conversion. IrfanView is capable of making the best of this task, since it brings a lot of configuration options that allows you to perform conversions that perfectly suit your needs. Among the basic image conversion options that you will be able to select there is the possibility to select output format, folder, quality, etc. and several more advanced options like to maintain the EXIF information, or to carry out all kinds of adjustments (rotation, greyscale conversion, to apply effects, contrast, brightness, saturation or range adjustments, etc.). To read a full review of its features, check this article at HandyWare and here.

Regarding novelties, recent changes and improvements in IrfanView's latest version (4.25) we can find its new screen capture option (Region capture), new color management options, support for OCR plugins, support for Nero and it also brings an improved full screen mode, for further reading on changes check here.

So I downloaded and installed IrfanView to test its integration and behavior under Microsoft's latest operative system, Windows 7.

Installation & First Run
Installing IrfanView was an easy and quick process consisting on 5 steps. Read the rest of this entry »

VLC Media Player plays almost any audio and video file regardless its format. This capability is the reason why millions of users consider this great media player to be the best. This amazing compatibility with media files of all sorts is possible due to the fact that VLC Media Player brings its own set of codecs. Thus VLC does not depend on those which you have already installed in your Windows-based machine.

The interface of VLC Media Player has no secrets, even for novice users. Despite its ease of use VLC also brings advanced features such as the ability to stream video.

Throughout its development, the program has been specialized in video playback. This is clearly noted on the possibility of adding subtitles and handling multiple audio tracks associated with a movie.

Another aspect that makes many users to choose VLC Media Player is the ability to open incompletely downloaded videos. Moreover, VideoLAN News claim in its official site that version 1.0.2 meets all of the technical requirements to be Compatible with Windows® 7 and that its latest version, 1.0.3 which is the Release Candidate "…brings a few improvements and fixes, and especially fixes an important issue with Windows® 7 that worsened the video quality of the default output of VLC."

So, I downloaded, installed and run VLC Media Player under Windows 7 and what you are about to read is the result of this testing. Read the rest of this entry »

Safari, the popular web browser for Mac OS X, is also available for Windows, with new design and incredible navigation speed. Starting with the development of the WebKit open source web engine, Apple has opted to implement web standards. Safari 4 includes HTML 5 support for off-line technologies and advanced CSS effects support, thus opening the door to a new category of rich multimedia web applications, graphics and fonts. This amazing web browser has passed the Web Standards Project's Acid3 test, which examines the browser's adequacy to the CSS, JavaScript, SVG and XML standards specifically designed for dynamic web applications.

Safari 4 includes Top Sites for a preview of the favorite and frequently visited pages, Full History Search to search the titles, web addresses and the full text of recently visited pages, and Cover Flow to easily come back to web history or bookmarks. Other innovative features include Smart Address Fields to automatically complete web addresses from an easy to read suggestions list; Search Fields to refine searches recommendations Google Suggest or a list of recent searches and Full Page Zoom for zooming in or out to any website without degrading the quality of site layout and text.

Another strength of Safari is its private browsing which is ideal for visiting web-pages leaving no record in the history or in the cookies and downloads list. Safari also takes into account the favorites and it can also be an excellent RSS reader. It also has the ability to block pop-ups, keep our form data and passwords and it includes a tool to access the code of the page we are visiting.

For further reading on its latest improvements check this article, and here for a full review.

Today I'm going to tell you about Safari's behavior under the Windows 7 environment.

Installation & Run
It could not be otherwise, this Apple product was completely installed and running without hitches in an interim of very few minutes and in only four simple steps. Without incompatibilities of any type and in the easiest possible way. The first two steps of the installation process were the Welcome and License Agreement windows. Read the rest of this entry »

iTunes is a popular multimedia player and manager developed by Apple which is now available in its ninth version. For a complete review on this piece of freeware please take a look at this article on HandyWare. However, just to take a quick look at iTunes' novelties I must tell you that version 9 brings some very intersting innovations, the greatest world multimedia store has been redesigned: it is now much cleaner, images have gained prominence giving it an overall more modern look. Undoubtedly this was a good twist, moreover, we can also mention the structural problems that entailed expanding content of the store.

Genius Mixes have also been improved, iTunes will now create up to 12 automatic playlists (mixes) with the music we have in our library. They have also added support for Facebook and Twitter, for us to share the records that we like with our friends. We can also sync music from iTunes on up to 5 computers at once. There were already some third party tools to achieve this, but it's much better if it is built-in, isn't it?.

Last but not least, the best news for me is that iPhone / iPod device management has been greatly enhanced. Now music can be configured for each device, in a much more specific way. Most outstanding is the applications management, being able to arrange them by dragging and dropping directly from the interface; this is a very good improvement that we were clamoring as it is a heavy task to move applications from screen to screen.

So, I have downloaded and installed iTunes 9 under Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7, in order to test its performance under this environment and thus be able to tell you about it.

Installation & First Run
I must tell you that i was not surprised to find that iTunes installation process resulted to be quick and easy, not a single complication, delay or difficult decisions to be taken, everything was resolved in four steps. As I said no surprises if we have in mind that this is an Apple product. Read the rest of this entry »

KMPlayer is a really comprehensive media player; it is also extremely easy to use, stable and agile. This piece of freeware is a solid candidate to become the only player you need in your PC for both video and audio, this is a great alternative to existing media players, standing out especially for its enormous versatility, ease of use and exceptional performance. When it comes to video playback, KMPlayer is very effective and supports many formats, provided you have the right codecs installed. If we talk about KMPlayer as an audio player, you will find that it delivers an acceptable quality. Besides, KMPlayer has a nice interface and offers advanced tools that allow you to make the most of our music and video collections all included in a really lightweight package, which is something that gives a certain advantage over other classics of the genre. With KMPlayer you can keep your various multimedia libraries updated, set playlists, capture portions of audio/video, or get the look you want thanks to its support for skins.

It is almost impossible to detail all the features KMPlayer brings, anyway, if you want to learn more about it you can take a look at this article.

So, I've downloaded and installed the latest version of KMPlayer under Windows 7 RC1 and what you are about to read is the result of having tested its behavior and performance.

Installation & First Run
As I always say, if you start your day with the right foot possibilities for success are higher, in the same way, a clean, straight-forward installation process is the portent of a good, bugless subsequent running. And as far as I can see KMPlayer is one of those cases. The installation itself was pretty short and quick. It consisted on 7 steps, the two first were the language selection for the installer (note that it is not the language for the program) and after selecting English the Setup Wizard opened. Read the rest of this entry »

Torrent downloads are the largest percentage of traffic on the P2P networks, representing more than 60% of the total bandwidth throughout the world. It is thanks to this kind of file-sharing networks and to the BitTorrent technology that users have access to a range of downloads from the Internet, mostly contributed by other users. In order to download via torrents, we must have a P2P network BitTorrent client installed in our PC, so this application can communicate with servers and files trackers to carry out successful downloads.

One of the most widely used clients is uTorrent which is famous for being a tiny client with great functionality and also for its low resource consumption and high efficiency when downloading torrents from the web. For those who do not know about it, I can tell that the piece of freeware I am going to write about today is a simple and efficient application for downloading all kind of .torrent files, as a matter of fact, uTorrent can boast of being one of the smallest in its class. Among its various advantages uTorrent features support for simultaneous downloads, ability to set how much bandwidth we want to allow the program to use and the capability to handle resumable downloads. You can read about the novelties of its latest beta in this article by Yuki. So, today I’m going to tell you how the latest available beta version of this tiny but handy client behaves under the Windows 7 environment.

Installation and First Run
It's been around 3 years since I downloaded and installed uTorrent for the first time and as you can imagine I have used it extensively under several Microsoft's operating systems including XP and Vista. I was always amazed by the little time it takes to get it ready to run, and I have to say that it continues to be like that now that I have to install it under Win 7. Read the rest of this entry »

WinSCP is an intuitive client for SSH connections. With WinSCP you will be able to connect to SSH servers using secure connections as SCP (Secure Copy Protocol) or SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol), thus totally securing all data transferred though this connection. WinSCP is very easy to use thanks to its interface, which can be used with the Windows Explorer standard format or Norton Commander style, with two panels (one for the local disk and one for the remote PC).

You can perform any operations on the remote machine almost as if you were in your own PC: basic file management command, utilities, search and replace, and so on. You can also use an editor and move files from one PC to another simply by dragging and dropping. WinSCP is also capable of securing your connections and if you want it can generate a log of all the activities undertaken by the program. Moreover, WinSCP is freeware and open source.

So, I downloaded, installed and run this client under Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7 and what you are about to read are the results of this testing regarding installing, running, integration and bugs.

Installation and First Run
The 5-step setup procedure was easy and straight-forward, no complicated decisions to make, no delays or hitches, not a single inconvenience. The first step was the Setup Wizard: Read the rest of this entry »

This great utility, called SnagIt is capable of capturing everything you need, from an active window to a selected region, from a simple image to a piece of text, from a web page to even a video, and this data can be immediately exported to the clipboard, to another image editing program, sent directly to the printer or saved in several graphic formats. In addition, this comprehensive application brings a lot of tools which will allow you to perform a lot of actions, either before taking the capture or in order to process them after to your taste and need. Regarding the latter, post processing, you will find especially interesting the many effects that SnagIt can add to edges and all kind of notes, from great arrows (no more Paint arrow making) to different texts formats, highlighting, and much more. SnagIt is perhaps the opponent to beat when screenshot capture is concerned.

So, I installed and run SnagIt under the Windows 7 operating system and what you are about to read is how this program works and behaves within this environment.

First Step: Installing and Running
The setup process consisted on five steps: decompression and launching the SnagIt 9.1.2 Installation Wizard Read the rest of this entry »