Completely FREE Software - CFS Weekly Newsletter #523 issued October 9, 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(does not take you directly to the program listing) it is probably because the site has been upgraded and the link is no longer valid.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

Projekt "W" Phase 1 v1.2 – WinXP/Vista
Projekt "W" Phase 1 is a turn-based strategy, world domination sim set in a near future. It features 1 to 5 players, 39 different buildings, 14 different military units, 25 technologies to research, varying AI personalities, state-of-the-art 3D graphics, tutorial, good Helpfile, multilingual (English & German), and more. The "W" in Projekt "W" Phase 1 is an abbreviation for "Weltherrscher" which is German for "world ruler", a great description of this fabulous sim (simulation game). There are five regions in the world (Neweurope, Ubermerica, Empire of the Dragon, Arabian League & Oceanic Front) and you play as one of those regions. If you play a single player game then the computer AI will control the other four regions, though you can play with up to four other friends in an all-human "hotseat" game. Multiplayer games are played on the same computer with each player taking turns in the "hotseat". In Projekt "W" Phase 1 you must grow your region, controlling all aspects including military. You can get involved in research, spy on your enemies (and sabotage them), manage staff, and manage your resources. Poor overall management could either mean a military defeat or extinction, good management could mean defeating other regions and, finally, becoming the Weltherrscher, or world ruler. Citizen loyalty is an important aspect if you want to win, as is keeping the pollution level low. It is strongly recommended that you read (and print) the 17-page PDF-based Helpfile, and also work through the in-game tutorial. Projekt "W" Phase 1 is one of the best sims we have seen of this type and we are looking forward to Phase 2 being released some time in the near future. We loved! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 32.7MB download from: WinXP General Games

Device Doctor v1.0.0.1 – WinXP/Vista
Device Doctor is a tool that automatically updates hardware drivers. It features an on-line database of more than 3 terabytes (3,000 GB) of drivers, updates WHQL (Microsoft certified) and non-WHQL drivers, provides device names for unknown devices before updating drivers, and more. This is a great tool for ensuing that you have the latest drivers for your computer hardware devices (scanners, printers, motherboards, audio, etc). Turn on all your external devices (printers, etc) and run the fast scan. A few seconds later you will receive a list of devices that can be updated. Each has its own download button so you can select which drivers you want to grab updates for and which to ignore. Simply click on the download button and a download window will appear. Ensure you direct the download to where you want it to go (we use a folder named "Downloads" so we can find all downloads), click on OK, and download the updated driver to your hard drive. Easy. We had one major problem with Device Doctor – the downloads (when we reviewed the program) were painfully slow, so slow we felt it would be faster to get out and walk! Even though most of our downloads are normally between 260,000kb/s and 280,000kb/s, the downloads from the Device Doctor Website were averaging about 10kb/s. Aaaarrrggghhh!!! As some of the downloads were over 30MB, the wait was excessive. Downloads from the main site (ie the program itself) was very fast, it was just the driver section which was exceptionally slow. We also couldn't have more than three downloads at any one time. There was also no "resume" feature on the server so, if a download crashed, you had to start again to download it rather than just resume where it had stopped before. That aside, Device Doctor is one of the best ways to ensure that you have all your device drivers up-to-date and, to achieve that, we are happy to ignore the slow downloads. A "must have" for all PC users. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 4.56MB download from: WinXP Windows Enhancements

CD Recovery Toolbox v1.1.12.0 – Win98/ME/XP/Vista
CD Recovery Toolbox is a program that recovers files (even large ones over 4GB) from damaged, corrupted and unreadable CD, DVD, HD FVD & Blu-Ray disks. This may be caused by mechanical damage (scratches, chips, different spots on the surface) or as a result of incorrect recording. CD Recovery Toolbox can read a CD or DVD placed into the player. Just tell it where to place the recovered files on your hard drive, which file(s) you want recovered, and click on the "Save" button to begin the recovery. While you are notified when a file cannot be recovered, there is no logfile or single list of recovered/not-recovered files. We believe that this would be helpful. Generally, CD Recovery Toolbox does an excellent job of recovering files which are deemed to be lost on a disk. However, it cannot recover all files so some losses are to be expected on a corrupted disk. As another weapon in your arsenal to keep Windows running smoothly, CD Recovery Toolbox is well worth grabbing. We loved! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 673kB download from: Win98 General Programs

USBDeview v1.43 – WinXP/Vista
USBDeview is a small utility that lists all USB devices currently connected to the computer, and all USB devices that were previously used. For each USB device, extended information is displayed – device name/description, device type, serial number, the date/time that device was added, VendorID, ProductID, and more. This is a great tool for anyone who wishes to know the state of their USB devices, what are working, what their serial numbers are, and any other information you need to know about them. The level of information provided is encompassing. USBDeview allows you to disconnect USB devices which are currently connected and to uninstall devices that you had previously used. If you have been having trouble with your USB devices, USBDeview might be just the tool to sort out their problems. Worth a look. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 61kB download from: WinXP Desktop Utilities

X2X Free VideoAudio Merger v1.0 – Win98/ME/XP/Vista
X2X Free VideoAudio Merger is a program that can merge & join several audio or video files into a single output file. It supports 3 output file formats (MP4, AVI & MP3), offers several output quality options for each file format (high, standard, economy, etc), can read most major video & audio formats (3GP, FLV, MOV, MPG, MID, OGG, WAV, WMA, etc), easy to use, and more. This is a terrific tool if you need to stitch together two or more video clips or audio files. While it can read a huge range of audio and video file formats, it is limited in the formats it can write to. It could, for example, merge a 3GP file with an FLV file and an MOV file, and save the merged video to AVI. It could also be used to simply convert any of the supported input file formats to one of the three output file formats, but it is the merging or joining functions that make X2X Free VideoAudio Merger a "must have" tool on your desktop. Simple to use, highly effective, lots of supported file formats, and good control of the output. What more could you want? We loved X2X Free VideoAudio Merger and suggest you grab a copy today. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 3.35MB download from: Win98 Multimedia Programs

DesyEdit v3.2.124 – Win9x/ME/XP/Vista
DesyEdit (pronounced "Daisy Edit") is a programmer's ASCII text editor which supports 13 programming languages (HTML, Delphi, C/C++, VB, JavaScript, etc). It features editable syntax coloring, hex editing, a tabbed interface, it is project oriented, there are no filesize limits, it includes an HTML tag toolbar, it has integrated e-mailing functions, built-in FTP client, HTML validation, macro recording & playback, a recently used file list, extensive keyboard shortcuts, can be always-on-top, and more. This is a superb ASCII text editor and worthy replacement for the crude Notepad editor supplied with Windows. While it is clearly designed for programmers, specially HTML authors, it functions equally well as a standard Notepad replacement due to its simple-to-use interface. It is blindingly fast and took less than a second to open our 10MB test file, with 470,000 lines of text! In our opinion, DesyEdit lacks in only two departments – it does not have a spell checker (though an external one, like tinySpell, can be used) and it does not offer global search-and-replace (it will not work across all open documents). Those two items aside, DesyEdit is one of the best ASCII text editors we have seen, specially with its support for HTML and other programming languages (though mainly HTML). It offers a wealth of features that are not immediately apparent to a new user. Sadly, the Helpfile is in Korean so it is useless for English speaking users, but the only item we wanted more information on was the "Crypto" function (which we still know nothing about) as the rest of the program was very easy to use. Impressive from every direction you examine it, DesyEdit is the type of program that many other programmers aspire to create, and don't. We loved! Access this 2.68MB download from: Win95 Text Programs

Able RAWer v1.4 – Win9x/ME/XP/Vista
Able RAWer is a RAW editor that can view and correct RAW images (photos) taken with digital cameras. It supports 14 RAW formats (CRW, CR2, NEF, RAW, PEF, RAF, X3F, BAY, ORF, SRF, MRW, DCR, DNG & ARW), has 8 color adjust controls (Contrast, HSV, HSL, RGB, Equalization, FFT, Gamma correction & Sharpen), 6 effects filters (User filter, Bump map, Lens, Wave, Morphing filters & Rotate), includes auto color adjust, high-quality or low-quality color interpolation, automatic white balance, image crop, and more. If you have a digital camera that uses RAW images (and there are lots that do) you might have trouble finding an image editor that supports these types of files, or even a program to convert them to another format. Able RAWer is not only able to convert your RAW image to one of 15 popular formats (including BMP, TIF, JPG, GIF, PNG, etc), it can carry out many of the image conversion functions that you may require. Able RAWer can crop an image and carry out most of the color correction functions to help improve your image. There are also some filter effects should you wish to add some razzmatazz to your images. While it is not designed to replace a dedicated, and expensive, image editor (like Photoshop, Corel Paint Shop Pro, etc), it can carry out most tasks that these heavyweights are commonly called on for. Overall, we were most impressed with its power and ease of use, though we felt the lack of undo/redo was a major omission. Able RAWer is a "must have" for anyone with a digital camera that produces RAW images. Grab a copy now! Access this 2.00MB download from: Win95 Graphic Programs

Deal Or No Deal v1.0 – WinXP/Vista
Deal Or No Deal is a PC-based version of the TV show of the same name where you first select a case containing money. You then remove the remaining cases while, at regular intervals, being offered a deal to buy the case you originally selected. This is a game of greed and nerves where you must decide when to accept the deal. In this version the amounts of money are in pounds sterling but the remainder of the game is much as it is played across the world. Once you have selected your case then you must remove the nominated number of cases. At the end of each batch of cases you will be offered a payment for your case based off the value of the remaining cases. As no money actually changes hands, this version of Deal Or No Deal lacks the nail biting tension of the real game where you can make, or lose, a fortune. Designed for fans of the TV game, Deal Or No Deal is a fun way to kill 10 minutes. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Get this 4.78MB download from: WinXP General Games
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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