Completely FREE Software - CFS Weekly Newsletter #579 issued February 18, 2011

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(does not take you directly to the program listing) it is probably because the site has been upgraded and the link is no longer valid.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

Flying Motorbike v1.0 – Win98/ME/WinXP/Vista/Win7
Flying Motorbike is a sports motorcycle challenge where you must complete a series of obstacle courses. It features 20 progressively harder levels, levels are time-based, it has good graphics, simple but challenging gameplay, it is suitable for all ages, and more. This is a fun little game where you use the arrow keys and Spacebar to move your motorcycle through an obstacle course. The first few levels are too easy but you soon find that you move into more and more challenging levels. You cannot jump ahead as each level must be completed before moving to the next. The courses are straight line, and quite short, but the obstacles (ramps, stacks of tires, bricks, etc) increase in size and frequency as you progress through the game. Once you have completed all 20 levels you probably wouldn't want to play Flying Motorbike again (except to challenge a friend) but the journey to level 20 is fun and, in many instances, quite challenging. Worth a look. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 5.50MB download from: Win98 General Games

True System Security Tweaker v1.1 – WinXP/Vista/Win7
True System Security Tweaker is a security utility for tweaking and optimizing Windows. It features over 470 security options in 13 main categories & 35 sub-categories, there is information about each tweak, it offers password protection so others cannot change your settings, it has the ability to reset all tweaks, it has an easy-to-use interface, no installation is required (just unzip to a folder of your choice and run from there), and more. Not only is this is a great way of improving the security of your PC by limiting access to certain parts, but True System Security Tweaker also allows you to access parts that were previously locked by Windows when it was installed. It includes a huge number of security options and there is a brief description of each one displayed when highlighted so you can decide if you want to allow or disallow it. We were most impressed by True System Security Tweaker. It gave us access to certain commands and functions which are normally hidden (or very hard to find). For us, this is definitely a "keeper". We loved! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 1.18MB download from: WinXP Windows Enhancements

WinX DVD Author v5.9 – Win98/ME/WinXP/Vista/Win7
WinX DVD Author is a video to DVD authoring tool. It supports over 10 file formats (AVI, MP4, MKV, WMV, DivX, Xvid, MPEG, MOV, FLV, H264, etc), supports NTSC & PAL, supports 4:3 & 16:9 screen formats, optionally adds subtitles, adds custom audio tracks, supports most hardware interfaces (IDE/SCSI/USB/1394/SATA), and more. This is an easy-to-use DVD authoring tool that is very fast (about an hour for a full 4.3GB DVD). Tell it which videos you want to turn into a DVD, add any title/chapter requirements, put a blank DVD in your burner, and it will soon create a DVD for you to play on your TV or share with others. If you like, it can create a DVD folder on your computer with all the VOB, INFO, etc files required to create a DVD movie. WinX DVD Author has two "problems". The first is that it cannot create an ISO disk image of your movie – the only options are to burn it directly to a blank DVD (only one copy – you cannot even create multiple copies of the same disk) or to copy the DVD file structure and files to your hard drive. While there are free video disk to ISO converters, we feel it shouldn't need a separate program to convert your DVD movie into an ISO image. The second "problem" is that there is a notification "menu" that appears on the screen when you first load the created DVD into your DVD player. This notification says that the disk is created with the free version WinX DVD Author, but it automatically disappears after a set period of time (the minimum is 5 seconds). If you have created a title for your DVD it will appear after the nag "menu" screen disappears, otherwise the movie will start to play automatically. Apart from those two issues, we loved WinX DVD Author. It is a superb program and is really easy to use. It includes a stand-alone DVD disk burner so you can use it to burn any movies from a standard DVD folder/file format on your hard drive. Worth checking out if you want to create DVDs of your video movies. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95. Access this 9.26MB download from: Win98 Multimedia Programs

FTE Text Editor v1.0 – WinXP/Vista/Win7
FTE Text Editor is a tiny ASCII text editor and RTF word processor. It features no filesize limit, has unlimited undo/redo, an optional native FTEF format (saves colored backgrounds & text), and more. This is a neat little text editor that also opens and saves to the RTF format plus its own FTEF format. It opened our 10MB test text file in under 2 seconds and it has unlimited undo and redo functions, though they are not listed in the toolbar (there is no menu) and you need to know that Ctrl-Z is the undo hotkey, and Ctrl-Y is the redo hotkey. Alas, there are no RTF font attributes available and there is no print function. Needless to say, there is also no spell checker. For a small, fast text editor, FTE Text Editor does exactly what it is supposed to do. It requires no installation and you simply unzip the file and start to use. If you are looking for a very small text editor, then FTE Text Editor should be on your list. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 14kB download from: WinXP Text Programs

Photo Collage Max v2.0.1.6 – WinXP/Vista/Win7
Photo Collage Max is a tool which makes photo collages, with a Wizard for greeting cards, calendars or wall posters. It supports 5 image formats (JPG, PNG, TIF, GIF & BMP), includes 45 templates (15 for each category), offers extensive layout editing, you can print or share collages, and more. This is an easy way to turn your photos into calendars, greeting cards or even wall posters. Simply select the type of collage you want, choose from 15 templates for that collage type or create your own from a blank page, add the photo(s), edit as required, and save. The finished collages can be exported as an image for either printing or sharing with others. The editing function of Photo Collage Max is excellent, with provision to change the size or orientation of the collages for different purposes (eg e-mail or print), crop, rotate, move or zoom the photos. You can also change the color, shape, opacity of the shadow, and also add text, choosing the text font, font size, color, graphics, background color, etc. So far so good. There is a Pro version of Photo Collage Max and you must put up with screens nagging you to purchase the Pro version and, worst of all, an ugly watermark (380 x 70 pixels in size) in the middle of your finished collage (with the obvious intent of encouraging you to pay money to have it removed). While this is an excellent collage maker, Photo Collage Max earns no favors from us with its aggressive marketing through the nag screen, and that watermark which effectively spoils the finished collage. If you can put up with the watermark, and you don't mind being nagged to spend money, then give Photo Collage Max a try. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 33.9MB download from: WinXP Graphic Programs

Fast Link Checker Lite v2.0.0.600 – WinXP/Vista/Win7
Fast Link Checker Lite is a utility that checks a Website for broken links. It supports all popular resource types (HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, etc), supports HTTP & SOCKS5 proxy servers, checks several pages at a time, can follow all links on a page, it is easy to use, and more. If you run a Website that links to other sites then you understand the problem of broken links. A simple way to track the integrity of your links is to use a link checker, like Fast Link Checker Lite. Aim it at a Webpage (either on-line or on your hard disk), ensure that the settings are correct, and click on the Start button. In seconds you have a report about the links on that page and you can manually check the ones marked as being broken or unobtainable. Fast Link Checker Lite offers quite a lot of information about each link, including the URL, status, comment, page title, protocol, content type, page size, last modified date, character set of the page, time taken to download the page, type of resource, directory level, external or internal location, and more. We used Fast Link Checker Lite to check some of our pages and found that it consistently said there were eight "errors" on each page that we did not consider errors. However, we quickly learnt to ignore those eight and focus on any other errors found. If you have a site with multiple links to other sites then you need a link checker like Fast Link Checker Lite. Try it for yourself. Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98 or ME. Access this 8.60MB download from: WinXP Internet Related

Free Stopwatch v2.0 – WinXP/Vista/Win7
Free Stopwatch is a full-featured stopwatch for your desktop. It features 100th-second accuracy (0.01 seconds), it has an optional lap timer, it can copy lap time results to the Windows Clipboard or save lap time results to TXT file, can open multiple instances of itself running separate times, and more. At some time or another we all need a stopwatch and, if you want one for your desktop, then Free Stopwatch is probably exactly what you are looking for. Simple to use, it can record the time an event takes to happen, or it can be used as a lap timer. When used as a lap timer it can save the lap times to the Windows Clipboard (for pasting into another program) or save the details as a TXT file which can be opened in Notepad or in Microsoft Excel. Best of all, you can run multiple instances of Free Stopwatch with each instance running its own time. While not used often, we always have a stopwatch in our utility toolbox, and Free Stopwatch will replace the one we were using before. We loved! 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

Solitaire XP v1.0 – Win7
Solitaire XP is the Windows XP version of the popular Klondike cardgame. It features crisp card details (unlike the Windows 7 version!), outline dragging, does not nag to save a game when it is being closed, and more. Why Microsoft changed the games in Windows 7 from the crisp, clean versions in Windows XP to the fuzzy Win7 versions is something that we cannot comprehend. However, you can get that older version of Solitaire and run it on your Win7 computer and still have the Win7 version available too. The best of both worlds. We liked the older versions of the games and were disappointed when Microsoft changed them in Win7. Now we can have our favorite version of Solitaire XP available to us. We loved! Note: we have been advised that this program is not suitable for Windows 95, 98, ME, XP or Vista. Access this 424kB download from: Win7 General Games
UPDATE
Sachith's Notepad – replaces the default Windows Notepad ASCII text editor – has been updated to version 2.0 with a much larger download size of 8.51MB. The author advises that changes in this version include: added a context menu for the System tray icon; URL detection; ability to change background color & text color; mouse wheel zooming; smooth text scrolling; text reading ability with Windows default narrator; change the text viewing alignment; support for opening huge files; menu bar has been improved; and lots of bug fixes. Get this much updated program from: WinXP Text 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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