Completely FREE Software - CFS Weekly Newsletter #457 issued December 14, 2007

Home > CFS Weekly Newsletter #457: issued December 14, 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(does not take you directly to the program listing) it is probably because the site has been upgraded and the link is no longer valid.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

Claus the other side of Santa – Win9x/ME/XP
Claus the other side of Santa is a Christmas-themed side-scrolling shooter where you, as Santa, blast away at Pokemon, Teletubby & Barney style images. It features a Boss enemy to overcome, has fun Christmas music, good graphics, simple gameplay, is suitable for all ages, and more. This is a light-weight, but fun, shooter. Your sleigh is controlled with the arrow keys and the Spacebar provides the firepower to down those terrible Teletubbies and other figures as they advance towards you. Finally you reach the Boss that can fire back and who takes a lot of hits to down. In the meantime you have to watch out for the elf – hit him with your sleigh and its all over. Claus the other side of Santa is a fun way to kill a few Christmas hours (well, minutes, but let's not get pedantic). We liked (but then we always did like the concept of Pokemon and Teletubbies figures getting wiped out by an aggressive Santa!). Access this 1.60MB download from: Win95 General Games

Retouch Pilot Lite v2.2 – Win98/ME/XP/Vista
Retouch Pilot Lite is a tool of repairing and retouching photos (specially scanned images). It features 2 main tools (Scratch Eraser & Concealer), an Undo Brush (selective undo), it offers multiple undo/redo, image autocorrection (brightness & contrast), rotate & flip, resize, crop, there is a demo mode for each tool, and more. This is one cool tool. It allows you to remove scratches and other imperfections from images using the Scratch Eraser (a blending tool) and the Concealer (a painting tool). Retouch Pilot Lite has a terrific Undo Brush that allows you to undo any changes made to the area being brushed so you don't have to squirrel back through multiple levels of undo to correct an error (and then painstakingly re-instate all that lost work). There is also a standard undo/redo tool that offers many levels (unlimited?) of undo and redo. While there are few tools in this program, they are tools most digital photographers will find invaluable. It is even more invaluable if you have a collection of ancient photos that you wish to scan and touch up. We were most impressed with Retouch Pilot Lite. While it does lack the Smart Patch tool found on the full (shareware) version, the tools provided were excellent and a worthy add-on to your graphics' toolkit. We loved! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 2.68MB download from: Win98 Graphic Programs

7 Days A Skeptic – Win9x/ME/XP/Vista
7 Days A Skeptic is a space-based adventure RPG, the sequel to "5 Days A Stranger" (also available through CFS) but set 400 years later, where the crew of a scout ship discover an unknown artefact floating unprotected in deep space. It features a strong storyline, interesting characters, good puzzles, save game function, and more. This is a great little RPG (role playing game) which links back to the first game of the series, "5 Days A Stranger", and re-introduces the evil character of John Defoe who promptly kills all but one of the crew of the small scout ship, Mephistopheles, which has been surveying and mapping the Caracus galaxy. The puzzles are strong, the interface excellent, and the storyline is superb. 7 Days A Skeptic is one of the better RPGs, albeit with a dark aspect. If you have already played "5 Days A Stranger" then this is your next step. If not, we suggest that you do play it before playing 7 Days A Skeptic. We loved! Access this 1.29MB download from: Win95 General Games

NT Registry Tweaker v1.0 – WinXP/Vista
NT Registry Tweaker is a tool to tweak and tune up Windows. It features 40 tweaks/tuneups in 4 main categories (Performance, Explorer, Internet & Security), 1-click update to author's recommendations for each category, and more. This is potentially a terrific tweaking tool that offers some excellent system speed ups and improvements. We used the author's link in each category to turn on the recommendations, rebooted the computer as requested, and found that our system locked up. This could have been because of programs we regularly run might cause a conflict with these new settings, and others may not have the same programs and therefore not experience the same problem. However, we were disappointed that there wasn't information about each tweak so you could decide for yourself which one to accept, and which one to reject. For example, we believe that the command to "Force windows to unload unused DLLs from memory" can potentially cause problems with some programs, but this is one of the "recommended values". Alas, there is also no simple way to return to your old configuration should you, like us, find problems. As it happened, we had screenshots of our previous config and could easily return to those old settings. This is not to say that NT Registry Tweaker is not an excellent tool, and you may find the recommended settings are perfect for your computer. Because we do not agree with all the author's recommendations we strongly suggest that this is a program for experienced PC users – even though it is simple to use and includes some excellent tweaks. We also suggest that you grab screenshots of the settings within the program before you start so you can quickly return to those values if required. Possibly, if you do find problems after making bulk changes, you could try the changes one at a time until you can locate the tweak that is causing a problem in your system. For all our warning comments, we still liked NT Registry Tweaker and consider it a worthwhile tool to have around to help improve your system's performance. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 0.99MB download from: WinXP Windows Enhancements

Christmas Tetris Clone – Win9x/ME/XP/Vista
Christmas Tetris Clone is a Christmas-themed Tetris falling block game. It features 10 levels, 10 custom Christmas background images, 10 Christmas victory sounds, next piece indicator, keyboard or mouse operation, no installation required, and more. This is a novel Tetris clone with its strong Christmas theme. While it does not offer any fancy bells and whistles it is a good Tetris game that can be controlled via the arrow keys or using a pad within the game with the mouse. Blocks are standard, and you get a next piece notification, but nothing else to make this clone stand out from the others. This is officially "nagware" as there is a nag screen to visit the author's Website when the program closes but there was no Internet activity (it isn't spyware) unless you elect to visit the homepage. We liked Christmas Tetris Clone. The Christmas theming is well done and the game, like similar Tetris clones, is fun to play. Worth a look! Access this 362kB download from: Win95 General Games

YoutubeCrazyVideos v2 – Win98/ME/XP/Vista
YoutubeCrazyVideos is a YouTube desktop toolkit with a built-in FLV player. It features all major clip tools (search, find, play, download, convert, extract audio, etc), spy on other users, Tagcloud, My Premiere, My Favorites, easy-to-use interface, and more. This is an awesome suite of desktop tools for anyone with an interest in YouTube. You can use it to find clips, it can display them without visiting the YouTube Website (of course, this needs an active Internet connection), you can download clips, extract the audio from them – even convert them to MPG, AVI, WMV, etc. You can use YoutubeCrazyVideos simply as a player for FLV files already downloaded, and much more. Even though this is a terrific set of tools, it displays some information in Spanish. Even though this is usually easy to understand (even for someone with no Spanish language skills) it does detract from the overall program slightly. That aside, YoutubeCrazyVideos is one of the best YouTube/FLV toolkits we have seen. We loved! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 2.90MB download from: Win98 Multimedia Programs

Senseless War beta 17 – Win9x/ME/XP/Vista
Senseless War is a tactical war game (like Tower Defense) where you must either attack or defend a castle. It features 3 game modes (Arcade, Conquest & Capture the Flag), 4 levels of difficulty, a huge variety of troops & armory (from foot soldiers to UFOs!), and more. This is a fun strategy-style 2D battle game where, in the default Arcade mode, you must defend your castle against a massive army. You can have up to 100 coins to purchase troops and/or armory, and you get "paid" for every soldier killed. If you can build your bank balance up into the thousands you get access to some pretty weird defenders – from a tank to a War-god, from a dragon to a hovercraft. There are atomic mines to buy, extra walls, and lots of different types of troops (flame throwers, archers, gladiators, etc). The troops are basically just stick figures and many look similar. If you place your cursor over a button underneath the battlefield you can see what type of soldier or item it is, and what it costs. Items you can't afford are ringed in red. Apart from the poor Help screen provided with the game, we loved Senseless War. It isn't easy to win and, in Arcade mode at least, it is all about scores – ultimately you cannot win because eventually your castle will be overcome. Senseless War is a great way to kill an hour or three, and it has a high "come back" index, which means you will want to come back to play it again and again. A "must have" for all tactical wargame buffs. Access this 2.27MB download from: Win95 General Games

TabPad v1.90 – Win9x/ME/XP/Vista
TabPad is a small Notepad replacement with a tabbed interface. It features drag 'n drop (including batched drag 'n drop to open multiple files), optional autorecovery (in case of computer crash), Clipboard Snippets, document info (word count, etc), random colors, and more. This is a nice little ASCII text editor. It is designed to have a similar look 'n feel to Notepad and can be used as a replacement. It adds some neat features not found in Notepad, like a mini Clipboard extender to save clips for re-use, but is has one major downfall – it has a 64kB filesize limit. While it opens multiple files, each up to 64kB in size, it cannot open a file larger than 64kB. This limits its use as a programmer's tool, and even as a true Notepad replacement. The filesize limit was a major disappointment for us, and it a limitation we would like to see removed. Apart from that, TabPad performed well and adds the benefits of a tabbed interface that allows for multiple document to be opened in the same program. It includes a search and replace function but, unfortunately, not globally across all open documents. TabPad is a good little Notepad replacement, but has some areas we feel should be fixed. If you don't need to be able to access files larger than 64kB you will, like us, enjoy the tabbed interface. Access this 60kB download from: Win95 Text Programs

Christmas Crisis v1.1.4 – WinXP/Vista
Christmas Crisis is a Christmas-themed, vertically-scrolling arcade game where you must assist Santa by delivering presents by dropping them down chimneys. It features 15 levels, 2 bonus levels, good graphics, challenging gameplay, fun for all ages, and more. This is a fun little game that is actually harder than it looks. You fly over a town, dropping presents down chimneys but you must get at least 70% of the presents delivered to pass the level. While you are flying you must watch out for planes. You manoeuvre the sled with the arrow keys, and use the Spacebar (or the left mouse button) to drop them. Unfortunately, you cannot go backwards – once a house has passed the bottom of the screen you cannot deliver to it, though you can fly around within the area displayed. Christmas Crisis is a light-weight game that somewhat frustrating to play – simply because it is hard to achieve the 70% demanded to complete each level. We enjoyed Christmas Crisis. While it is not a game that will probably be played during the rest of the year, it should give lots of fun during the Christmas season. Worth grabbing! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 3.32MB download from: WinXP General Games
UPDATE
FotoTagger – a program that adds tags and captions to JPG images – has been updated to version 2.7 with a slightly larger download size of 2.32MB. The author advises that this version makes image management and sharing more convenient by enabling applying sharing and managing operations to sets of arbitrary selected images. It lets you perform various operations, such as rotation, export to HTML, publishing to Flickr, or sending by email, on a set of images. Get this latest version from: WinXP Graphic Programs
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