I have been using and reviewing several screen recording applications in the past years including Camtasia Studio and Camstudio but I never came upon a software that was easier to use. Tip Cam is a free screen recording software that records the full desktop or parts of it and saves the output in flash video format which is the most common video format on the Internet these days.

It comes with a few settings, quality settings for instance, but those are really only a few when compared to the screen recording applications mentioned above. You basically pick the size of the recording area from several available ones. They are divided into so called Zoom Levels and those that resize the desktop and the default one which records the complete desktop.

We all know that a larger area will increase the size of the video tremendously. The Zoom Levels that are available are 640×480, 800×600 and 1024×768. They appear as a green box that can be moved across the screen before starting the recording.

continue reading "Easy Screen Recording with Tip Cam"

Explaining Bittorrent to users with little technical understanding can be a time consuming task. You might be up for it if friends or family members are concerned but what if you distribute your content via Bittorrent to thousands of strangers who want to download the content but have no clue what Bittorrent is or does ? How about a simple application that uses the Bittorrent protocol to download a single file that requires zero configuration on client side ?

Bitcomet Lite is that application. It basically offers a way to create an executable that downloads one torrent from the Bittorrent network. That torrent is hard coded into the application which means that only this one release can be downloaded. The application on the client side basically consists of a progress bar and download button that has to be pressed to start the download. That’s it.

The seeder, or creator of the file has to compile the executable which is more or less an automatic process. A torrent file and some other data has to be specified and Bitcomet Lite will automatically create the executable which can be tested immediately and then distributed on a website or network.

continue reading "Bitcomet Lite"

Wow it’s late and I did even start to write the software updates article that I write each Wednesday. I was terribly busy today and could not find the time to write the article until now. This week was unbelievable, so many fantastic software updates that I had a hard time selecting the application for the update of the week.

Application of the week is Spyware Terminator. I really love SMPlayer and use it daily and it had been updated this week as well but since I already mentioned it before as update of the week I thought I give a great anti-spyware software the honor. I could have picked roughly ten of the listed applications here and they probably would have all deserved the honor. Just look at the list and you know what I mean.

If you know of an application that has been updated but is not in the list let me know about it in the comments so that I can add it to the list and monitor it from then on.

continue reading "Software Updates Week 16"

My nephew is sometimes coming over and I would accept any bet that he is heading straight towards the computer pressing buttons and moving the mouse around. This can cause some irritation and probably damage and I finally found a way to stop him. This is actually helpful in numerous ways, have you ever tried watching a movie with a kid on the computer ? If the kid is young he surely hammers away on the keys and moves the mouse lots of time which is a huge distraction obviously.

Then I discovered Toddler Trap by Skrommel a member of Donation Coder. Toddler Trap is like a filter that takes all the pressed keys and mouse actions and suppresses them. Pressing a key or a mouse button will have no effect on the computer, there is no way to close windows or open right-click menus. Some special keys are still working but the Windows key for instance is blocked as well.

So, whenever he comes the first thing I do is start up Toddler Trap and let him have his fun. I don’t have to worry anymore and he is happy. The Toddler Trap window centers on the screen but it is possible to move it away from there. The window will always be in the foreground to catch all the input and this proves to be a problem when watching movies.

continue reading "Toddler Trap"

If you ever did try to change the Windows system path variables then you might have cursed Microsoft for creating such a tiny form to edit those variables. The system path is being used by Windows to find executables and dependencies in Windows which will be used to find an application if you use the run box in Windows for instance. A system wide path and a user defined path exists with the system wide path having priority over the user defined one.

The order of the entries is important as well since the first hit will be selected by Windows. Now if you take a look at your system paths you notice that the Windows form is completely useless. You can access those variables by accessing the System Properties in the Control Panel, clicking on the Advanced tab there and then on the Environment Variables button. If you highlight the path variable and click on Edit you know what I mean.

The window that is opening is displaying 30 or 40 chars only and you have to scroll to see all entries which is not really helping to keep an overview of all the path variables. You could copy and paste the line into a text editor, edit it there and copy and paste it back when your finished but there is a better solution available.

continue reading "Editing the Windows System Path Variables"