Completely FREE Software - CFS Weekly Newsletter #502 issued February 27, 2009

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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(does not take you directly to the program listing) it is probably because the site has been upgraded and the link is no longer valid.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

ShockBall v1.01 – WinXP/Vista
ShockBall is a turn-based, arcade-style 3D soccer game for 1 or 2 players. It features 3 levels of difficulty (single player mode), LAN/Internet gameplay (dual player mode), interactive tutorial, choice of 6 animated balls, 11 video formats (inc widescreen), fullscreen & windowed modes, keyboard or gamepad, and more. This is a great time-based 3D game which is loosely based on soccer, but has elements of snooker or 8-ball. You take it in turns to shoot for goal and the winner is first to get 3 goals. There is a small learning curve until you master the various strategic aspects of the game but the tutorial does help in learning ShockBall basics. Best played against a friend (on the same computer, across a LAN, or on the Internet) though you can play it solo against the computer (with three levels of difficulty). Graphics are excellent, and you can change your views – pivot around from where your ball is, choose a wider view or zoom in for more detail. ShockBall is a game that gets better and better every time you play. We loved! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 18.1MB download from: WinXP General Games

QuickMac v4.8.0.0 – WinXP/Vista
QuickMac is a keyboard macro recorder and player. It features fast hotkey operation, an unlimited number of macros can be saved in the Macro Dictionary, macros can be encrypted, it can playback multiple copies of a macro, runs in the tray, and more. This is potentially an excellent little recorder that can save keyboard strokes and play them back later. Theoretically there is no limit to what it can be used for but, for practical purposes, it is limited due to the cumbersome access of the "Macro Dictionary" which is not a dictionary for spell checking purposes but simply a repository for your macros. Fortunately you can rename macros stored in the "dictionary" so you can recognize them later. While QuickMac does save, and playback, your keyboard key strokes, we found it was not the easiest program to use and feel some work on its interface could greatly improve it. We were also a little disappointed that it offers no Helpfile, not even a simple README file to assist new users, and that there was no easy way to have it load with Windows (a simple checkbox would be helpful). That said, QuickMac does do exactly what it purports to do, and does it well. Worth checking out! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 0.98MB download from: WinXP Desktop Utilities

Shape Collage v2.0 – Win9x/ME/XP/Vista
Shape Collage is an automatic photo collage maker that creates picture collages, in a variety of shapes, using an intelligent machine learning algorithm. It features a choice of 3 shapes plus text & custom, it supports all major photo formats, offers variable photo size, variable collage size, variable photo spacing, a choice of background color or image, variable border size & color, it optionally makes all photos the same size, and more. This is a fabulous tool for anyone wishing to create a collage of their digital photos. You simply load the images by drag 'n drop (supports BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG & TIF images), decide on the size and shape of the final collage, make any other adjustments required, and click on the "Create" button. You will be prompted to save the collage in one of three file formats (JPG, Photoshop PSD or PNG). Simple. The finished collages look good, though you can keep on clicking on the "Preview" button to see different photo layouts. We found that more photos, with a larger collage size, gave the best results, though the individual images were often quite small. The fewer and larger the images in relationship to the collage size, the more ragged the final collage, though the easier it is to view individual photos. We were most impressed with Shape Collage. It works well, offers sufficient control over the various elements to individualize the finished collage, and it is easy to use. Worth grabbing if you have a digital camera. Access this 309kB download from: Win95 Graphic Programs

FBackup v4.0 – WinXP/Vista
FBackup is a customizable backup tool that can backup to a ZIP file or create a mirror backup (no compression). It features an easy-to-use setup Wizard, optional network backup (LAN or Internet), scheduled backups, file filtering & masking, ZIP64 support (can create backups over 2GB), encrypted backups, automatic program updates, good Helpfile, and more. This is an excellent program that can backup your important data files (documents, etc) to a removable USB or firewire device, to a network, or just to your hard drive. There are two types of backup – the first is what the author calls a "full" backup where it creates a compressed ZIP file of all your backed up data (which can also be encrypted for privacy) and the second is a "mirror" backup which simply copies the selected files and folders to the location nominated without any compression or archiving. There are three plug-ins provided with FBackup – "My Documents", "My Pictures" and "Outlook Express" – but there are many, many more plugins available from the author's site. Overall, we were most impressed with this program but we were a little disappointed that a Registry backup plugin was not included. We also would have liked to have seen an incremental backup so that only changed or new files are added. However, these are minor points in a program which carries out the backup function so well. If you are looking to backup your files (do it every day!) then FBackup should be high on your list of potential backup programs. We loved! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 9.86MB download from: WinXP General Programs

CheckerBoard v1.651 – Win98/ME/XP/Vista
CheckerBoard is an interface to a checkers' engine and includes 5 different engines (including Cake & KingsRow). It features 1- & 2-player modes, it can replay games, there are 14 levels of play, an autoplay option between different engines, full game analysis, you can save games as HTML, add moves to a user book to force the engine to play certain lines, it offers a choice of 3 tile/board sets, it plays the English/American variation of checkers by default, there is a good Helpfile, and more. This is an awesome checkers (also known as draughts) game that is suitable for the most inexperienced player right through to the most experienced. It is compatible with PDN (Portable Draughts Notation) so you can share databases with other players and it offers a huge number of analysis tools to assist your gameplay. Most of all, CheckerBoard is a great way to play checkers, either against the computer or against a human opponent. The author claims that it is the strongest non-commercial checkers program for the Win32 platform, and we cannot disagree. If your boardgame of choice is checkers (or draughts) then CheckerBoard is a "must have". We loved! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 1.67MB download from: Win98 General Games

Format Factory v1.70 – WinXP/Vista
Format Factory is a multimedia file converter that supports most video, audio & image formats. It features the repair of damaged video & audio files, it supports iPhone & IPod formats, offers basic image editing (image rotation, flip, zoom, etc), includes a DVD to video file ripper plus a CD to audio file ripper, and more. This is an amazing file conversion program that supports MP4, 3GP, MPG, AVI, WMV, FLV & SWF video formats, MP3, WMA, AMR, OGG, AAC & WAV audio formats, and JPG, BMP, PNG, TIF, ICO, GIF & TGA image formats. It can rip DVDs to the seven supported video formats, plus to VOB, and it can rip audio CDs to 10 different audio file formats. It can even get the FreeDB information about a CD from the Internet! There aren't many multimedia file formats that Format Factory does not support! Unfortunately, the interface is not quite as good as we would have liked, though it isn't hard to learn and it is worth persevering to master Format Factory. We were also a little disappointed that there wasn't more control over some of the settings – for example, when ripping an audio CD to MP3 the best quality you can get is 128kbps, instead of the more desirable 192kbps. That aside, Format Factory is a sensational multimedia file conversion tool, and one that most PC users will love. We certainly did! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 17.6MB download from: WinXP Multimedia Programs

IntelliPad v0.7 – WinME/XP/Vista
IntelliPad is a programmer's text editor with a tabbed interface. It features syntax highlighting, no filesize limits, drag 'n drop, regular expression search, HEX editing, bookmark & text clipping, export to HTML & RTF with color syntax, tree-like workspace editor, copy & paste between 2 workspaces, and more. This is a great little text editor, which can be used for any ASCII text, but is specifically targeted towards programmers. It loaded our 10MB test file, with 470,000 lines of text, in just over 30 seconds – not the fastest we have seen but a reasonable speed never-the-less (some editors have taken over 5 minutes to load this file!). The interface has a second workspace, suitable for storing snippets of code or other text, which uses a tree-like hierarchy. IntelliPad lacks some features, like word wrap, but as these are grayed out in the menu we are assuming that they are to be added to the full version when it is released (the current version is a beta). It has a busy face, but the layout is very practical if you are a programmer. It lacks the vast store of scripts found in some similar editors, but what it does offer is good. Overall, IntelliPad is an excellent tool for programmers. Worth a look. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95 or 98. Access this 2.13MB download from: WinME Text Programs

Cavern Escape v1.000 – Win98/ME/XP/Vista
Cavern Escape is an adventure game set in a mysterious cavern, from which you must escape by finding various items and using them to make good your escape. The only escape is through a hole too small for you to fit through... This is a fun little game with appropriately sombre background music and some macabre puzzles to solve. While it is not the hardest adventure puzzle around, it is a fun game that should keep you busy for a while as you find the clues and work out how to use them. Cavern Escape is totally mouse-driven, and you click on the arrows to move around the cavern. The graphics are good, the puzzles, in places, are a little challenging (though not too hard), and the game has a finished feel about it. If you like dungeon-style adventure games then try Cavern Escape. Like us, we think you'll enjoy playing it. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 3.57MB download from: Win98 General Games
UPDATES
LangOver – changes the keyboard layout from English to any language, and from any language to English – has been updated to version 5.0.13 with a new, much larger download size of 1.48MB. The author advises that changes in this version include: improve hotkey to work with any combination; and it now works in any language. Get this latest version from: WinXP Text Programs
RoloFlex – a personal contact manager & info center that uses Visual DataFlex – has been updated to version 14.0.35.6 with a new, much larger download size of 34.2MB. The author advises that changes, from 12.6, includes document management where each entry (company/person) can be linked to documents on your computer. Also, the status of each contact is added. In addition, many small but important issues (bugfixes) were addressed and polished. Get this latest version from: Win95 General Programs
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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