Completely FREE Software - CFS Weekly Newsletter #510 issued June 19, 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(does not take you directly to the program listing) it is probably because the site has been upgraded and the link is no longer valid.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

Warzone 2D v0.91 – WinME/XP/Vista
Warzone 2D is a fully expandable 2D, top-down, action-shooter with lots of blood. It features 5 customizable game types (Capture The Flag, Deathmatch, Last Man Standing, Survivor & Arcade Challenge), up to 200 bots in play, Fuzzy Logic weighted AI, over 25 weapons (combat knife, Glock 22, M24 S/R, SVD1 S/R, PSG1 S/R, grenade launcher, Taser, etc), assignable squad orders, integrated map editor, in-built Help System with tutorials, and more. This is an interesting shooter which has been designed as a development platform for future games. Warzone 2D offers the equivalent of 9 games – 5 standard and 4 tutorial games. The tutorials, including the pre-tutorial interactive introduction, must be completed before you can start playing the regular games – and there doesn't seem to be any way of bypassing any part of the tutorial(s) if you decide not to continue and play the tutorials right through to the end. If you stop mid-tutorial and restart, you start from the very beginning! This is most annoying if you cannot complete all four tutorial games (and the interactive introduction) in a single sitting. We also had Warzone 2D lock up occasionally, though this might have been interaction with other open programs. Gameplay is superb and is worth the tutorial hassles. You have a huge choice of weapons (currently over 25 but more are being added regularly), and you can have up to 200 bots fighting on the screen at the same time (which the author describes as "insanely massive firefights"). The maps (landscapes) are typically 2D, and cover forest and desert, which is supposed to be a Martian landscape. Warzone 2D offers quite a lot of blood, but it is cartoonish and not very realistic. If you have the patience to get past the tutorial games, Warzone 2D will give you excellent action-shooter gameplay that is expandable. You can even create your own levels. Neat. Even with the hassles, we enjoyed playing Warzone 2D. Grab a copy and see for yourself. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95 or 98. Access this 5.03MB download from: WinME General Games

Jackson v1.34 – WinXP/Vista
Jackson is a program than offers sequencer-style mixing for the digital DJ that does not replicate traditional mixers. It automatically beat-matches tracks, song structure can be changed while playing them (parts can be repeated, skipped, paused & reversed), built in recorder, filters & effects, integrated BeatMapper, sliders can be controlled by physical midi controllers, generates a midi clock signal to tempo-sync external midi equipment, real time oscilloscope & spectrum analyzer, and more. This is a whole new way of mixing tracks for the DJ. Instead of emulating mechanical mixers, it users sequencer-style mixing that relies on metadata included in the track, and then automatically matches the beats between tracks. As most music is not currently beat-mapped, it includes a BeatMapper that automatically displays the beat of a track so that the user can add beat markers. Jackson synchronizes the beat markers of the two tracks so that mixing is accurate. As Jackson is not limited to the old mechanical mixing equipment, or to following that style, it can reach out into the digital world and offer enhanced song mixing with lots of cutting edge features that you won't find elsewhere. The included Helpfiles in PDF format were handy but we felt that they could have been better presented, possibly with more detail and in HTML format. The software itself has a small learning curve before you can really start to get something from it but the main secret is to ensure that the songs you are mixing have the beats mapped out on them. Adding beat markers to a song does not alter it in any appreciable way as it is completely hidden – it plays the same on other equipment as it did before. We were extremely impressed with Jackson. It is the next generation of DJ-style mixing software. A "must have" for both professional and wannabe DJs. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 4.73MB download from: WinXP Multimedia Programs

Panda Cloud Antivirus v0.9 – WinXP/Vista
Panda Cloud Antivirus is a cloud-based antivirus thin-client, using a network of Collective Intelligence servers to identify & process viruses automatically. It includes local & remote antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-rootkit, heuristics and goodware cache. Unfortunately, CFS was unable to review this program because no other antivirus program can be running when the program is installed. The author says: "The first and only free cloud-based antivirus thin-client with 50 percent less impact on PC performance compared to the industry average. With Panda Cloud Antivirus, Panda Security is introducing a new protection model that utilizes a thin-client agent and server architecture which processes and blocks malware more efficiently than locally installed signature-based products. By moving malware scanning and determination process to the cloud and applying non-intrusive interception techniques on the client architecture, Panda Cloud Antivirus is able to provide advanced protection against new and unknown viruses with a lightweight thin-client agent that barely consumes any PC resources. Traditional antivirus products for PCs rely on multiple locally installed technologies which intercept each file at different layers (entry vector, file system and execution) and scan them using various techniques (antivirus, heuristics, intrusion prevention, behavioral analysis, etc.). This process results in heavy usage of local PC memory and CPU resources, negatively impacting performance. The Panda Cloud Antivirus thin-client agent introduces a new philosophy for on-access asynchronous cloud-scanning. It combines local detection technologies with real-time cloud-scanning to maximize results while minimizing resource consumption. This optimized model blocks malicious programs as they attempt to execute, while managing less dangerous operations via non-intrusive background scans. Panda Cloud Antivirus includes local and remote antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-rootkit, heuristics and goodware cache, while only consuming an average of 17 MB of RAM and 50 percent of the PC performance impact as compared to the industry average." Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 18.7MB download from: WinXP Internet Related

Sysinternals Suite v06.04.09 – Win9x/ME/XP/Vista
Sysinternals Suite is a collection of over 60 individual troubleshooting tools. These include AccessChk, AccessEnum, AdExplorer, AdRestore, Autologon, Autoruns, BgInfo, CacheSet, ClockRes, Contig, Coreinfo, Ctrl2Cap, DebugView, Desktops, DiskExt, DiskMon, DiskView, Disk Usage (DU), etc. Designed primarily for advanced PC users by Microsoft staff, they cover most aspects of troubleshooting a PC and are an invaluable suite of tools. While many of the tools are suitable for more inexperienced users, the lack of centralized information within the suite means that most users have to try a utility to see (a) what it does, and (b) if it is valuable to them. Some you can guess from their program names, and others have Helpfiles, but most must be tried to see what they do. For example, ShareEnum offers no Helpfile and you have to go to its homepage to find out that it is a utility that "uses NetBIOS enumeration to scan all the computers within the domains accessible to it, showing file and print shares and their security settings". Some of the tools are fabulous – like Autoruns which offers "the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor". And it does! Not only that, you can use it to stop programs auto-loading with Windows. Another good program, but with a problem, is Desktops. This great little tool offers the user up to 4 virtual desktops. Unfortunately, there is no easy way of closing it down expect to use the Processes tab in Task Manager to shutdown the process "Destops.exe". Why isn't there an "Exit" option in the right-click context menu? At present, when you unzip Sysinternals Suite you are faced with a total of 99 files – 73 are application files, others are Helpfiles (both CHM and HLP formats), yet others are DLL and SYS files. There's even a couple of TXT files. Sysinternals Suite cries out for a wrapper – a master program that offers access to each of the utilities but which also gives a brief description of what each does. It also needs a full Helpfile for each utility (this information is available from each utility's homepage). Until that happens, it will be a much under-used suite which should be used with extreme care, specially by non-technical people. Apart from the lack of wrapper program and Helpfiles, Sysinternals Suite is a sensational collection of powerful troubleshooting tools. We loved! Access this 10.0MB download from: Win95 Desktop Utilities

BongleBeep v1.0 – WinXP/Vista
BongleBeep is a fun puzzle for all ages where you must match up 2 or more balls of the same color to get them to disappear, while new balls are being added all the time. It features good graphics, good sounds, highly addictive gameplay, hi score, and more. This is a lightweight puzzle where balls are constantly being added to the bottom of the pile and you must click on pairs (or more) of the same color to make them disappear. The object is to remove all balls from the screen, which seems easy but is quite hard. Often you reduce the total number of balls left to 3 or 4 but they aren't pairs so you cannot remove them from the board. There seems to be a problem with the scoring because you get 10 points when you click on a ball, even if it isn't part of a pair so it doesn't disappear. If you are looking for an addictive little game, then grab a copy of BongleBeep. It's lots of fun. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 119kB download from: WinXP General Games

CD&DVD Label Maker v1.2 – Win98/ME/XP/Vista
CD&DVD Label Maker is a CD & DVD label and jewel case designer. It creates CD/DVD covers & mini-CD/DVD disk labels, option to use digital images as the background, control over font attributes (color, size, etc), layout tools, export label as image, easy to use, and more. CD&DVD Label Maker allows the user to create a single look which can then be applied to the jewel case insert as well as to the CD or DVD. You can place an image on the label and then add text of any size, color, font type, etc that you want. Unfortunately, you cannot make the background to the text transparent so your text sits on a white rectangle, which spoils the look 'n feel of the finished label if you have a colorful image behind. It also does not create DVD case inserts as it does for CD jewel cases. We were disappointed that the export tool only creates a JPG image of your label, with only moderate quality, it does not produce BMP, GIF or PNG images as indicated in the export dialog box. JPG is not always a good format for many images, and the not-high-quality images produced lack the detail of high quality images. This should be a terrific CD label designer, but it isn't. It does an acceptable job of producing CD labels if you don't mind your text sitting on white rectangles. It does not offer refinements like 3D text or other effects to enhance the overall appearance. If you can live with the limitations of CD&DVD Label Maker then grab a copy now. The rest of us will await a later version which, we hope, will have these issues rectified. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 627kB download from: Win98 General Programs

Bulk Image Editor v1.0 – Win98/ME/XP/Vista
Bulk Image Editor is a batch digital photo editor that can process a large number of images quickly. It features a simple Wizard-based interface, it has the ability to carry out basic editing functions (resize & compress), it optionally adds text, and more. This is a Java-based program and requires the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) files on your computer. Bulk Image Editor is one of the easiest ways we have seen to resize images. You can decide if you wish the images to be of a particular size, or if they should be a percentage of the original. Either way, Bulk Image Editor quickly re-sizes them and creates a new file that is much, much smaller than the original. It can also add text to every image in the batch. Unfortunately, you have no way of controlling the size of the text, or its attributes (bold, italics, etc) but you can determine its color and its location on the images (it is the same for all images). The lack of control over text font or size, or over the normal text attributes, is a serious omission and makes this feature virtually useless under many circumstances. Likewise, you have no option in regard to how much an image is compressed, though the setting used by the author seems to give a good compromise between quality and size. Finally, it only works with JPG images. This means that Bulk Image Editor may not be a digital photographer's "must have" tool, though it is handy in many applications. Unless you are creating very small images, forget the text feature, but the rest is great for resizing batches of JPG images. We liked. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 273kB download from: Win98 Graphic Programs

99 Seconds v0.9 – Win98/ME/XP/Vista
99 Seconds is a "Bejeweled 2" style match-3 puzzle. It features 8 levels of difficulty (including a 99-second game), 4 game speeds, a new color is added to each new level of play so it gets progressively harder, there are Jokers & other wildcards, there are in-game hints, it has superb graphics, is highly addictive & has challenging gameplay, a high score, and more. This is an excellent version of this "match-3" classic game. It has just enough uniqueness to make it stand out from the crowd, and ray-traced graphics for some awesome eye-candy. In this game you can swap colored "tokens" (as the author calls them) sideways or vertically so that three or more of the same colored tokens are in a line – horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Then they will disappear, the ones above will fall, and new ones will be added to fill the void. You can only swap tokens to create a matching triplet. If you haven't made a move for 30 seconds the game will give some hints on possible moves, or you can request a hint by pressing the C key. 99 Seconds is a game that should have a warning label – Danger: highly addictive! We suggest you do not start this game unless you are prepared to put aside some serious playing time. We loved! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 21.4MB download from: Win98 General Games
UPDATE
RapidTyping Typing Tutor – a touch typing tutor – has been updated to version 2.9 with a new, much larger download of 1.91MB. The author advises that changes in this version include the addition of themes of dialogs and new skins, plus some minor bug fixes. Grab this new version from: WinXP General Programs
COMMENTS
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