I'm not sure if any of you guys use Google Chrome and would like to experiment with its Dev version, that's why I haven't posted about my extension for Google Reader here, but on another forum, dedicated to Chrome extensions: Chrome Plugins. But now I thought that maybe some of you would like to check it out, so let me write a mini-review.

TPGoogleReader is an extension for Google Chrome that makes working with feeds, and particularily with Google Reader, much easier. There is already a lot of Google Reader extensions for Chrome but this one has more features than most of them. Probably the most important feature (and difference) is the ability to automatically open new items from feeds in the browser, in background tabs. Just check the checkbox on the toolstrip:

Trout is an audio player that DC member Skwire started writing as an entry to our NANY (New Apps for the New Year) Challenge on DonationCoder.  For those of us who aren't into fancy skins and prefer a more compact, clean, standard listview user interface, Trout is a breath of fresh air.

http://skwire.dcmemb...s/software/trout.php

Trout has tons of features that one might expect in a serious audio player (lyrics, album art, etc.).  But truthfully I don't care about or use such features.  What I wanted to write about was how uniquely useful Trout is for listening to Audiobooks.


Why is Trout good for listening to Audiobooks?

Trout makes it really simple to load up a directory of tracks and sort by filename or track name, and makes it really easily to save and load playlists.  Ok nothing special there -- but it's done well and no weirdness like the Microsoft Media Player where its hard to work with the song list or sort by different fields.

It has an option that will announce, using text-to-speech (or a simple tone), the audio file tracks as they are played.  This can be incredibly useful in two situations when listening to audio books.  First, it helps you remember which tracks you were last listening to when you went to sleep.  And second, it helps you navigate tracks using the keyboard (media keys are supported) even when the monitor is off.

It has a very nice big track progress display that you can click on to easily jump around.

While these may seem like minor features -- they do make Trout the best audio player for audio books that i have found.

Well, I missed the set ~48 hour (I've read 75k download limit) download window from Microsoft, however I did still manage to obtain a copy and have it running on my machine now (alongside Spyware Terminator and Threatfire, no problems).

Figured I would give my opinion/experience thus far and maybe PM a link to the installer to those that may be inclined to give it a test of their own...

My experience:

The setup is straightforward and fast. It takes a whole 60 seconds from launch (of Setup) to launch (of MSE) - Windows Validation is tested before installation, and since mine has already passed it took ~1 second to see that and pass me on through. Once finished, it prompted me to start MSE and download updates + run a quick scan.

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My opinion:

While it isn't great, it isn't as disappointing as I was expecting - false positives aren't automatically removed (ONLY because I changed the option before it found them, OTHERWISE it would have removed them permanently, so take note of that! ) and it gives you a nice little window when it finds something. The GUI, while basic, keeps it just right for always-on protection and the occasional scan.

Anyone else have MSE? Have an opinion? If you would like the installer, send a PM my way and I'll get you a link (or some googling may work, but Microsoft may be tearing it down from 3rd party download sites already).

NoteZilla takes the concept of sticky note software to a fine art. 

The first thing to see is that NoteZilla was very stable in my use.  And consistently esthetically pleasing.  You can navigate menus and right-clicks at leisure and find the features, the author will try to answer any puzzles you hit by email and the color and shape and utility of the notes are very flexible.

Basic Info

App Name	Objconv
App URL	http://www.agner.org/optimize/
App Version Reviewed	2.08 (May 27th 2009)
Supported OSes	Windows, Linux
Support Methods	Forum, e-mail
Pricing Scheme	Open Source
Relationship btwn. Reviewer and Product	REVIEWER: Regular user

Intro:

First of all let me warn you that this is a tool for programmers, and probably only a small subset of those will ever need a tool like this.

Objconv is a command line tool that can convert object and library files between a number of formats, and also perform certain changes in the process.

Objconv at the moment supports COFF, ELF, OMF and MACHO formats, with both 32-bit and 64-bit support where possible.

It can be used as a simple library manager because it supports adding and extracting members.

Objconv also includes a disassembler supporting the SSE4, AVX, FMA and XOP instruction sets.

The author, Agner Fog, is well known for his work on documenting low level optimization techniques, and the pdf files available from his homepage are a great resource.

App Name	AntispamSniper For The Bat!
App URL	http://www.antispamsniper.com
App Version Reviewed	3.2.0.6
Test System Specs	Windows 7
Supported OSes	Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista x86/x64
Support Methods	Forum, Email
Upgrade Policy	Free Lifetime Upgrades
Trial Version Available?	Commercial Version: 30-Day Trial
Pricing Scheme	$19.95 Per License
Relationship btwn. Reviewer and Product	None, other than being a customer

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Many on this forum swear by the powerful email program known as The Bat!. It can keep track of literally tens of thousands of emails with nary a slow-down in performance while sorting and displaying your messages in almost any way possible. One may argue, though, that its true glaring weakness in email management is its utter lack of any practical way to deal with spam out of the box. Fortunately, there are many different choices for spam management available both as stand-alone programs and more specialized applications that make use of The Bat!'s plugin system. This review is is an analysis of one tool that can help stem the tide of useless crap into one's inbox.

Today I am going to be reviewing one of those specialized plugins called AntispamSniper for The Bat! by Good Vein Software. The author also offers versions of AntispamSniper for Outlook, Outlook Express, and Windows Mail, but this review will be focused on the version for The Bat! The flavor of AntispamSniper written for The Bat! differs from the versions for the other email clients in that it is the only one to offer both commercial and free versions of the plugin. The other email clients only have commercial versions.

While this review is going to be discussing the commercial version of the plugin most features discussed are available in the free version. I'll outline the differences later.

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