Recent Posts

6076

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by Curt on January 29, 2008, 05:28 PM »

The only two problems I have found after the first 24 hours of using Online Armor Free are 1) that the systray icon doesn't pop up any menu when the icons are "hidden" inside PS Tray Factory. Online Armor Free is the only program I have with this weakness. -And 2) that Online Armor is too intrusive when I want to uninstall some program. Why on earth must it know if it is okay that I am running an uninstaller?

@ Darwin, did you test the not-free version? The free vesion does not have Web-shield, and what other reason could there be for the browser-tab related slowdown you spoke about? I have not yet seen Online Armor Free slowing down my Internet browsing.

6077

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Bits Du Jour and GAOTD one-day deals

« Last post by Curt on January 28, 2008, 10:54 AM »

Yes, Darwin, and I (too) had it for free back then. But I don't have it anymore, because I think the registry cleaner is (was) removing too much!

6078

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Bits Du Jour and GAOTD one-day deals

« Last post by Curt on January 28, 2008, 07:29 AM »

Come Friday, 1'st of February, Bits du Jour will offer Advanced WindowsCare PRO:

Advanced WindowsCare Professional

Deal Price: $15.87
You Save:48% - List Price:$29.95


A System Utility for Superior PC Health

Advanced WindowsCare Professional Edition is an award-winning, comprehensive utility suite that provides an automated, always-on, all-in-one PC Healthcare Service.

The suite includes an anti-spyware utility, privacy protection and encryption, performance tune-ups, and a variety system cleaning capabilities. With Advanced WindowsCare Professional Edition, you can "Install It and Forget It". The application completes it's processes automatically and runs quietly in the background.

Advanced WindowsCare Professional Edition gives you the ability to keep your computer safe, error-free, and running at it's top speed and optimal performance level.

6079

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by Curt on January 27, 2008, 06:02 PM »

To my understanding Online Armor is $40 once - not "per year"? 
If so it really is tempting! 

6080

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone using Silverlight?

« Last post by Curt on January 27, 2008, 03:29 AM »

Silverlight 1.0.21115.0 is working without any problems on my XP, but I have not yet come acrosss any real-life site that is using it, other than Microsoft's demo pages... so if you don't have it  you won't miss it.

http://silverlight.net/
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/
http://silverlight.live.com/

I don't know anything about Adobe Air, because I don't have Air (!).

6081

General Software Discussion / Re: Perfect Software?

« Last post by Curt on January 26, 2008, 08:52 AM »

Task Killer is another "perfect" program.
Not updated since 2005, though, so not Vistable.

6082

General Software Discussion / Re: The great defrag shootout

« Last post by Curt on January 26, 2008, 06:01 AM »

After having tested almost all of these defraggers 'you' have mentioned, I have settled with Ashampoo Magical Defrag 2, Advanced Registry Doctor Pro and SysInternals PageDefrag.

6083

General Software Discussion / Re: Attention Mod

« Last post by Curt on January 26, 2008, 05:36 AM »

New button: "PM this topic". 

6084

General Software Discussion / Re: Time to Wipe this Machine! Clean install? Or XP Repair?

« Last post by Curt on January 25, 2008, 12:43 PM »

I hope all of this will cost you no money, J-Mac? When I recieved my present PC there were a lot of minor 'items' - slow this and very slow that - and in the end it was a hardware thing. Reinstalling helped zero!

6085

Found Deals and Discounts / Alpha Five 60% off

« Last post by Curt on January 24, 2008, 10:53 AM »

What Alpha Five is: >> With Alpha Five, you can quickly and cost-effectively build fully functional desktop and web database applications. Also included are flexible report writing, intelligent email, data browsers and a full security framework. A rich programming language and tools like Action Scripting combine ease of use and complete extensibility. <<

The winner of Dr. Dobb's Events' 18th Annual Jolt Awards will be announced on March 5, 2008; Alpha Five is a finalist in 'Development Environments'.

You can read a thorough review at Programmer's Heaven. The review ends like this: >> While I wouldn't recommend it for every situation where you need to build web or desktop frontends to databases, it is well suited to intranet and in-house corporate applications. If you put the deployment issues and niggles aside, it provides a far better way to develop database-backed applications than the widespread "hand-rolled" approach, and is certainly the direction that web development should be heading in: eliminating code when we can generate it by simply declaring what we want. <<

Some more people think it is a very fine program:




HERE is a link to a 30-day trial (the link is coded laplink, who mailed me the offer). Alpha Five is regularly $249, but until the end of January you can have it for $99 with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

$99: https://www.alphasof...mp;refcode=laplink01

Tutorials:
     

6086

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Giveaway of the Day - StarBurnShark 9.5

« Last post by Curt on January 24, 2008, 10:00 AM »

Bug-fixed StarBurn 9.5 is being offered (again) today
http://www.giveawayo...burnshark-9-5-rerun/

6087

General Software Discussion / New Blockpost for Outpost

« Last post by Curt on January 24, 2008, 07:49 AM »

I was using Blockpost for Outpost for several years, but had to give it up when I installed the new Outpost 2008. The original Blockpost was a third party plugin, written by Outpost users, but now Agnitum are writing their own Blockpost for Outpost. Blockpost has my warmest recommendations.

Here is a copy&paste from January's email from Agnitum Directions:

Agitum Plans Blockpost for 2008
Chief Architect Alexey Belkin gives a sneak peek at new functionality for 2008:    

OFP = Outpost Firewall Pro
OSS 2008 = Outpost Security System 2008

In 2008, we (Agnitum) will continue to enrich our products with the latest functionality and improvements to your security and your user experience. In the next upgrade to OFP and OSS 2008, codenamed R2, we’ll be integrating functionality similar to that provided currently by the Blockpost third-party plugin.

Q.: Alexey, what does Blockpost do? Please also tell us a little about its history.

A.: Blockpost was originally developed by an Outpost fan as a separate plugin. Its goal is to block malicious web sites and advertising networks through the use of a blacklist of IP-addresses associated with these sites. Many users requested that we incorporate this kind of functionality into the base products, so we’ve written a new module to provide this capability. While the original Blockpost plugin was good, it wasn’t compatible with the latest Outpost version that support Vista, IPv6 and x64 systems.

Q.: How is Blockpost different from the spyware-site blocking and web control functions already in Outpost? They seem to be doing the same thing. What’s the difference?

A.: Yes, Outpost does already provide several different ways to block unwanted IPs, special firewall rules being one of them. But Blockpost gives you more flexibility - it is completely user-controlled and user-generated. You can upload your own lists of infective IPs, even define a range of IP numbers that you consider unsafe. And you don’t have to spend extra time creating rules - there are text-based lists of bad IPs easily available on the Internet.

Q.: But what works for one person might not work for another…

A.: That’s absolutely true. And false positives can also happen unless you’re careful. You need to double-check the IPs before you add them to Blockpost - some of the lists out there are old, and the IP addresses on those lists may well have become legitimate in the interim. No-one wants to give up half of their Internet sources just because somebody had once put them on a blacklist. Tastes differ, and people change.

Q.: So how would you sum up the user benefits of Blockpost?

A.: Blockpost saves time by ensuring that the websites you visit are legitimate, supports all the new Outpost architectures, has an easy-to-use interface, and provides more control and stability

Special offer:
Get 1 year of free protection for your business or classroom!    



Special Offer! 2 years for the price of 1! From now until March 1, 2008, Agnitum is extending a special offer to anyone looking for a great deal on security for a small business or educational institution. If you have a minimum of five PCs, you can protect your office or classroom against Internet threats for two years for the price of one. This offer covers both Outpost Firewall Pro and Outpost Security Suite Pro 2008.

Follow this link to learn more about how your office or classroom can benefit from this offer!

6088

General Software Discussion / Re: Plain text editor for writers

« Last post by Curt on January 24, 2008, 02:34 AM »

..Do these editors offer unique features ..?

-superboyac (January 23, 2008, 06:33 PM)

"these" - what editors? Sorry; I am confused.

What goes for FlashNotes: It will popup 'as a flash' when you hit the hotkey, and it auto-saves, no need to click anything, other than to type.

As for Liquid Story Binder: I listed all the features in this post, but I imagine it can do all that you would want it to - it can even be totally simple:

6089

General Software Discussion / Re: Gizmo's "46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities List" updated

« Last post by Curt on January 23, 2008, 05:47 PM »

From now on also the Premium email edition will contain advertisements!

 

6090

General Software Discussion / Gizmo is asking for help!

« Last post by Curt on January 23, 2008, 02:47 PM »

Gizmo
supporters[at]techsupportalert[dot]com

Call for Help: Try Your Hand at Reviewing

For the last two issues I've asked for volunteers to help with the new Wiki-style version of the "46 Best-ever Freeware" list.

For this project to succeed, each software category needs an editor to moderate user comments, so I'm looking for experienced individuals to fill these roles.

The response has been good, but more volunteers are needed because there are still quite a few software categories needing editors.

If you feel that you are knowledgeable about a particular software category such as "program editors" or "disk encryption" then why not share your knowledge by becoming the editor for that category in the "46 Best-ever Freeware list."

As a category editor you will be fully credited for your efforts, unless, of course, you wish to remain anonymous. It's a great way to get your 15 minutes of fame. It's also a way of becoming an internet "giver" rather than just a "taker". And you will be surprised at just how much you will learn from the suggestions of others; I certainly have.

As of now, nearly 30 subscribers have volunteered. but more are needed. If you are interested, check out the list of still-vacant categories here [1] and select the categories that you would like to edit.

Then email coordinator[at]techsupportalert[dot]com with your selections plus a very short description of your background and experience. If you have any commercial affiliations related to any of the categories, please state them.

Feel free to select as many categories as you like or to suggest a new software category if you feel it is needed.

Thanks

Gizmo

6091

General Software Discussion / Re: Plain text editor for writers

« Last post by Curt on January 23, 2008, 02:04 PM »

In my imagination the thread got carried away because the very titel of the thread is "unclear". We know what a plain text editor is, because we all have Notepad or similar. But what is a plain text editor for writers? I mean, what are they writing?  Programs? Homepages? Books? Notes? Any rich formatted text -with or without graphs or images, or does it have to be text only? I don't think it takes lack of forum organization to get distracted by such uncertainty. Anyway, we can take it, and so can you if you try. 

If the editor in question can handle plain text only, I would go for FlashNotes. But if it is allowed to handle a lot of whistles and bells I would go for Liquid Story Binder and write an illustrated book - including sound files as wwwell! 

6092

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by Curt on January 23, 2008, 10:00 AM »

So for a software firewall I've settled on PCTools Firewall V3.

-4wd (January 23, 2008, 03:55 AM)

With or without ThreatFire ??

6093

General Software Discussion / Re: Prompt Uninstaller; yet another rip-off

« Last post by Curt on January 23, 2008, 09:07 AM »

Well it's a shame it was listed in the first place.  Cyber Bandwidth Monitor is another rip-off. FreeMeter Bandwidth Monitor For Windows looks like the original project.

-PhilB66 (January 23, 2008, 07:59 AM)

You cannot expect this kind of sites to investigate every program before linking, it would take far too much time - they are offering several thousand links. I think it is fair for FWT to supply a link and ask their users to report if there are any kind of problems.

Cyber Bandwith Monitor is just another SpeedApps progam, and all their programs are rip-offs.



I use NetMeter from http://www.metal-machine.de/readerror/ 

6094

General Software Discussion / Re: Prompt Uninstaller; yet another rip-off

« Last post by Curt on January 23, 2008, 07:37 AM »

I have reported the problem to FWT.

-Curt (January 21, 2008, 05:47 PM)

Did you hear back from FWT?

-PhilB66 (January 23, 2008, 06:56 AM)

This is the third or fourth time I have emailed FWT about irregularities and I have always received a proper response. This time Jørgen thanked me and said that he would look into this, and I expect he will because he has done so the other times, but I do not expect to be informed about the final outcome.

6095

General Software Discussion / Re: Prompt Uninstaller is extremely fast!

« Last post by Curt on January 22, 2008, 04:19 AM »

Zsoft uninstaller is also a pretty fast.

-CGA (January 22, 2008, 03:41 AM)

- link corrected

http://www.zsoft.dk/...etails&prog_id=4 is the homepage

6096

General Software Discussion / Re: Prompt Uninstaller is extremely fast!

« Last post by Curt on January 22, 2008, 02:34 AM »

It would take so little for Mr. Halowani be make this legal - so little that I don't understand why he will dare the risk and try to make me think that he is the real author, when in fact he is a thief and the item he has stolen is a free and gratis program! All he would have to do is to supply the source code, because Safarp is GNU licensed. Isn't that so?

This program (Safarp) is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

-Safarp

6097

General Software Discussion / Re: Prompt Uninstaller is extremely fast!

« Last post by Curt on January 21, 2008, 05:47 PM »

I have reported the problem to FWT.

6098

General Software Discussion / Re: Prompt Uninstaller is extremely fast!

« Last post by Curt on January 21, 2008, 04:59 PM »

I followed your link, mwb1100, and would think it likely that Prompt is based on the Safarp source code which was abandoned 2½ years ago. Prompt is however showing much less informations than Safarp did according to this old screenshot from the homepage:



But a rip-off it may be.

6099

General Software Discussion / Re: Prompt Uninstaller is extremely fast!

« Last post by Curt on January 21, 2008, 02:37 PM »

.. farr's "uninstall plugin" is probably pretty close in terms of speed. + very easy to search your list...

-Armando (January 21, 2008, 01:21 PM)

I decided to search for e-sword, and typed "e",
but before my finger could hit "-"
I was already given 331 programs containing "e":

6100

General Software Discussion / Prompt Uninstaller; yet another rip-off

« Last post by Curt on January 21, 2008, 12:17 PM »

Edited for new titel instead of the original "Prompt Uninstaller is extremely fast"
as it turns out that Prompt Installer not was written by SpeedApps, but is a rip-off
------------------------------------------------------------------- original post:

Everyday I get an email from Freeware World Team telling about new or updated freeware, and today SpeedApps Prompt Uninstaller was listed, so I gave this one a try.



You know what? The word "speed" in the company's name is to be taken literally! VERY literally!! The first 'coldstart' of the program took half a second - and you know what even more what? that was half a second INCLUDING the scanning and listing of 385 programs!!!  

This program cannot replace REVO or AddRemove Pro if you are having any kind of problems, Prompt Uninstaller is of course a very simple program / displaying very few informations to be that lightening fast, but if you (like me) are (adding or) removing programs several times a day, then this little uninstaller will save you eons of time! It is so unbelievable FAST!!!!

Click thumb to read highlighted text: "385 items loaded in 0.141 seconds" - from my XP.


They offer a lot more:

Backup SafeKeeper * USB PC Lock Pro * Cyber Bandwidth Monitor * Desktop Activity  Recorder * Prompt FTP Client * Remote Manager * Desktop Screenshot Whiz * Firewall Tuneup * Files Crawler * Prompt Startup Manager * RSS Balloon Reader * Memory Monitor * Network Digger * Gmail Notifier * Free Registry Cleaner * Desktop Switcher * File Guardian * MyTorrent Downloader * Password Manager Complete * Windows Total Control * Swift Disk Defrag * WinIcon Customizer *  Prompt Uninstaller * Bulk Email Sender * Prompt Drivers Backup * Directories Sweeper * OnePass * System Tuneup * Process Manager

-SpeedApps

Edit: Link removed