Completely FREE Software - CFS Weekly Newsletter #450 issued October 19, 2007

Home > CFS Weekly Newsletter #450: issued October 19, 2007

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This electronic newsletter is registered – ISSN 1441-6840
Welcome to the CFS Weekly Newsletter.
The programs listed here are completely free for non-commercial use, even though some may be shareware or commercial products. None are time-limited and all are fully functional. If you know any that aren't exactly as specified, please let us know and they will be removed immediately.
If the link below does not work (does not take you directly to the program listing) it is probably because the site has been upgraded and the link is no longer valid. Please use the CFS Site Search facility (above) to locate the program.
COMPLETELY FREE SOFTWARE

Pirate Cliff v1.0 – Win98/ME/XP/Vista
Pirate Cliff is a fun shooter where you must protect your island & treasures from evil pirates. It features many pirate bosses, 7 different power-ups, you can purchase upgrades (cannon damage, ball speed, more balls, & more lives), it has good graphics & sound effects, has highly addictive gameplay, and more. This is not your normal shooter. In this game you control a cannon perched high on a cliff on the edge of your island and you must protect yourself from both air-borne (???) and sea-borne pirates. The air-borne pirates float around in hot air balloons, shooting at you, while the sea-borne pirates are attacking from tall ships. You adjust the angle of fire with the mouse, then press the left mouse-button to fire, and the right mouse button to defend yourself with a shield over your cannon. Not only are these hot-air powered dirigibles able to manoeuver with some agility, they are also gun platforms and will attack your defenses unless you can destroy them (it usually takes a number of direct hits before they are destroyed). As the pirate ships approach, they go under the firing range of the cannon and, to destroy them, you must fire your cannon high in the air so that the balls rain down on them. As you destroy the attackers, you get credits which can then be used to purchase longer cannon life (repairs your damaged cannon), faster cannon balls, etc. Pirate Cliff a simple game that is surprisingly good fun to play. It has a high addictive element and you will find yourself coming back to it time after time. We loved! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 11.7MB download from: Win98 General Games

Text Mining Tool v1.1.42 – WinXP/Vista
Text Mining Tool is a tool for extracting (mining) text from most common document types (PDF, DOC, RTF, CHM & HTML) without the need to have Word, Acrobat, etc installed. It saves that text to either a TXT file or to the Windows Clipboard. Quite often we need to extract text from, say, Adobe Acrobat PDF files but, unless you have the original program installed, this can be difficult or even impossible. Text Mining Tool allows you to extract that text without the need to have the original program installed. Terrific for anyone wishing to quote from a PDF file (students, report writers, etc) or from one of the other nominated filetypes, it could save you hours of re-typing. Text Mining Tool is a fabulous tool to have on-hand. Get it now! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 8.39MB download from: WinXP Text Programs

EXPStudio CD Ripper Burner Converter v4.0 – Win98/ME/XP/Vista
EXPStudio CD Ripper Burner Converter is an audio suite. It features 4 separate applets (CD ripper, audio file converter, audio file merger & CD burner), supports up to 13 different filetypes (dependent on applet), ripper includes CD player & is CDDB aware, ripper also includes an ID3 tag editor, burner creates both audio & data CDs, burner creates ISO files, burner supports Burn-Proof technology, and more. This is a superb suite of audio tools that all PC users will find invaluable. Offers a comprehensive set of much sought-after tools, and presents them in a professional manner that would grace any desktop. Each of the four tools is, within itself, free-standing, and each has its own unique set of features and functions. It can rip audio from CDs, convert a huge number of audio file formats, merge two or more audio files (or various formats) and save them as a single MP3 file, and it can burn your CDs for you (either audio or data). The CD burner also handles multi-session disks. EXPStudio CD Ripper Burner Converter is a "must have" suite of audio tools. We loved! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 4.68MB download from: Win98 Multimedia Programs

Diets In Details v1.0.0.1 – WinXP/Vista
Diets In Details is a calorie counter and diary. It features a database of over 50,000 food items (many are proprietary fast foods, like McDonalds, Dominos, etc), a search engine, it lists up to 10 nutritional items (fats, sugars, calories, cholesterol, etc) for each food, has a daily barchart showing total calorie intake, there is an easy-to-use interface, and more. This is a great way to monitor your food intake so you can check the nutritional value of the foods you eat. While it includes restaurant chains only available to US residents, general information is valuable and applicable to most Westernized countries. Because it includes a daily barchart showing total calorie intake for each day (assuming you add all the foods you eat), you can monitor your calorie intake to ensure that it is not too high. You can vary serving sizes to better reflect the quantity you are eating so Diets In Details can be an accurate tool to help reduce obesity and to ensure a healthy eating lifestyle. We found that the database was awkward to scroll through (primarily because of the huge number of foods listed) and the search engine was less than excellent. A search for "McDonalds" brought up no items, though a search for "McDonald" brought up two McDonaldland cookie listings. A search for "big mac" brought up 11 items, 5 of which were not "Big Macs" (or even from McDonalds) though the other 6 included McDonald Big Mac burger variations (bun only, burger with no bun, with no cheese, etc). Even with the poor search facility, Diets In Details is a great tool for anyone wishing to monitor their food intake and who wish to count calories. We liked! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 2.14MB download from: WinXP General Programs

ClearMoveU v2.45 – Win9x/ME/XP/Vista
ClearMoveU is a challenging logical puzzler based on the ClearMove mind game. It features a total of 9 levels of difficulty (3 grid sizes & 3 levels of difficulty), a choice of 5 block shapes, a choice of 8 background colors, a choice of 3 effects' speeds (plus off), excellent graphics, highly addictive gameplay, and more. This is a terrific game for anyone who enjoys a good logical puzzle. In this game you must align the colored blocks, not by moving individual blocks but my moving rows of blocks. This complicates the gameplay and makes it much harder to get those really good high scores. Combined with good graphics and lots of customization, ClearMoveU is a winner. We loved! Access this 2.14MB download from: Win95 General Games

Picture Resize v4.5 – WinXP/Vista
Picture Resize is a digital photo resizing tool. It features a Wizard-driven photo resizer to batch resize photos, image cropping tool, an image magnification, image rotation, includes 39 pre-set sizes (from fullsize to icon size, including custom), an icon creator, image analysis (image size in kB, download time, etc), choice of measurement (mm, inch, pixel, etc), and more. This is an excellent program for all digital camera owners and anyone who works with digital images. It gives you tremendous control over resizing an image, and it supports BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, TIF & ICO file formats. We particularly liked the Quick Resize feature which allows you to select a purpose for your image (to be e-mailed – 3 sizes available – for wallpaper, etc). This resizes the image to those preset dimensions and you just need to save the image at that point for the new size to be implemented. It also links to your e-mail client (Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Eudora, etc) and allows you to quickly e-mail a picture to your friends. Picture Resize is a handy tool and we have no trouble recommending. Grab a copy now! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 7.79MB download from: WinXP Graphic Programs

LCD PixelsOK v1.0 – WinXP/Vista
LCD PixelsOK is a small utility that checks for dead or defective pixels on LCD monitors. It does this by filling the screen with solid colors so that dead pixels (usually either black or white) are easily seen. The author says: "LCD PixelsOK allows you to easily check for dead or defective pixels on LCD monitors. You can use it to test a new LCD monitor before purchasing, or an already purchased monitor during the warranty period (you may get a replacement according to the manufacturer's dead pixel policy). A defective (dead or stuck) pixel is a pixel that does not illuminate properly or does not display the correct color output. It usually looks like an annoying black, white or colored spot on your screen." Simple to use, LCD PixelsOK brings up a single-color screen and a panel allowing the user to choose other colors (it is recommended to check each of the 6 colors). You can hide the panel by clicking on a button, and bring it back by pressing the Enter key. The program is closed with the Escape key. Simple. Every user of LCD screens should know how many (if any) dead pixels they have, specially when working with digital images. A "must have" if you have an LCD screen. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 99kB download from: WinXP Desktop Utilities

Luxor 2 v1 – WinXP/Vista
Luxor 2 is a match-the-colored-balls puzzle game with an Ancient Egypt theme. It features 88 levels, 15 different powerups, 3 levels of difficulty, sensational graphics, and more. This is a relatively simple game that is superior to similar games because of its superb animated graphics. In this version you fire a colored ball at a descending row of variously colored balls and, if you can place 3 or more balls of the same color together, they disappear. Sounds simple? It is, on the first few levels. Unfortunately, Luxor 2 is spoilt with a huge download and advertising. To download this game you must first get a small 674kB helper file that, when launched, downloads both the game browser or agent and the game. We are unsure of the size of these two programs, but the game itself claims to be 26.08MB, though we noticed over 120MB of traffic when this file was being downloaded and installed! The game browser (which you can use for other games from the same publisher) is a further 11MB. This makes Luxor 2 a massive download. The game browser installs itself in the Startup folder and loads every time Windows loads. We suggest that you delete the shortcut to this game browser so that it only loads when you want to play the game. The advertising is, at the time of writing, not very invasive and you get to view some comedic television ads (which has nothing to do with this advertising – it appears to be an attention getter). At the time of doing the review, clicking on those TV ads simply tries to sell you some games (ie it is a house ad). This could change at any time. Both the agent and the game are slow loaders, even with a fast computer, and this can be most annoying. Even with all the negative aspects (including the download size and the advertising), we thought Luxor 2 an excellent game. If you have the patience (and a fast broadband connection) try it for yourself. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 674kB download (the helper file) from: WinXP General Games
UPDATES
Glary Utilities – a suite of System tools & utilities to fix, speed up, maintain & protect a PC – has been updated to version 2.3.2.101. The author advises that changes in this version include adding 1-click maintenance and restore center, as well as other changes and improvements. Get this awesome suite of tools from: Win98 Windows Enhancements
Fix My Registry – a one-click Windows Registry tool that fixes problems in the Registry – has been updated to version 2.4 with a much larger download size of 1.01MB. The author advises that this version is a "new design". We noted that it now includes a section "Temporary registry values" as well as the four sections previously included. Get this latest version from: Win95 Windows Enhancements
COMMENTS
We would like to thank the regular visitors to the CFS site who have told us their favorite freeware. If you have a favorite program which isn't listed on the CFS pages we invite you to share that information with everyone through this site and this newsletter. If you are an author of a freeware app (or would just like to suggest a program) and would like it listed on these pages, please fill in the Submit Software form.
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