The main question is: How did you like it? We would like to hear your opinion to think about possible changes that we could make in next year’s giveaway. Maybe you would like to see more Linux or Mac programs in the mix, maybe hardware or something else that we did not think about. Whatever it is, let us know and we surely will do our best to please as many users as possible.

One element that worked out quite well was to ask you about the software that you would like to see in the Giveaway. We managed to convince most companies to donate some licenses of those programs and we intend to ask you again in next year what you would like to see.

Now it is your turn to let us know what you think about it. Oh, and merry Christmas to anyone.

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Installation is pretty straightforward and comes more or less with the usual choices. It is a little bit surprising (positive that is) that no reboot is required after installation. NOD32 will place its icon in the Windows System Tray and the first thing the user should do is to right-click it and select Update from the options provided. This ensures that NOD32 will download the latest virus definitions from a company server.

The interface of NOD32 comes with two display modes. Standard mode is the default mode of the security software which will hide options in the interface from the user. Advanced mode can be enabled to display all options in the interface. One example would be access to logs which is only visible when advanced mode is activated.

One interesting aspect of the interface of NOD32 is the possibility to switch menus while scanning. Most antivirus software applications do not permit this and block any attempts to switch menus during scans.

Antivirus software has to do well both performance- and detection-wise. It is beyond of the scope of this article to evaluate the capabilities of NOD32 but there are a few independent organizations that regularly test security software. NOD32 is usually ranking very well on tests performed by sites like AV-Comparatives or CheckVir. Those tests suggest that NOD32 has a low false positive rate, a good detection rate (both signature and heuristic) and a fast scanning engine.

ESET is proving an online scanner based on the NOD32 antivirus engine on the Internet which is unfortunately only compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

We have five licenses for ESET NOD32 Antivirus. If you want one leave a comment and let us know what you use to protect your computer system.

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UltraEdit is a text editor at its core and one could mistakenly think of it as yet another Notepad clone. While it still provides the speed of the default Windows text editor it comes with an impressive feature list that beats most – if not all – other text editors in Windows fair and square. Yes, that includes Notepad++ and the likes. That’s of course only true if you need the additional features that it provides. The feature list includes syntax highlighting, code folding, Unicode support, spell checking, ftp & sftp browser, ssh. macro engine, html building and customizations among others.

The editor provides professionals with the tools needed in their job. Webmasters and web designers who do use text editors and not a web designing software will find the features offered indispensable. UltraEdit provides syntax highlighting for web standards such as html, php, xml, javascript or css including a html file validator that checks if the code is W3C compliant. More than 500 wordfiles can be downloaded from the official homepage to add support for additional programming languages from Assembly languages to C++ and World of Warcraft Lua. The integrated ftp & sftp browser makes updating files on the Internet a breeze. Add to that a dockable SSH / Telnet window to access a remote server command line right from the editor.

Versioned backups ensure worry free editing as files can be backed up before changes are committed to them. A file comparison tool can be used to compare different versions of a file to highlight the differences.

Additional UltraEdit features include:

• Configure word wrap and tab settings for different file types
• Organize and access local or FTP files with projects.
• Hex, Unicode, Large Files support
• Integrated Scripting Engine
• Customize nearly every aspect of the editor
• WebSearch Toolbar (Wikipedia, PHP.net, MSDN..)

UltraCompare is a powerful file comparison tool that can compare files and folders with each other. Two or three binary and text files can be compared with each other at the same time and it is possible to merge the differences of the compared files. The folder mode supports both local and network directories and jar / zip file comparison. It also offers the means to merge the differences between compared directories.

The interface will display the text files that are compared visually highlighting the differences. Tabbed sessions allow to run multiple comparisons at the same time int he same window. The folder compare displays the folder structures next to each other using symbols and colors to highlight the differences.

Additional UltraCompare Features include:

• Differences navigation
• Multiple merge options
• Relational lines
• Isolate lines
• File Editing
• File Compare Profiles

You can grab a copy of UltraEdit or UltraCompare by leaving a comment below. Tell us what you currently use for file editing and text comparison.

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WinSnap is also known as the Windows Snapshot Maker, a screenshot application that is available as both a portable and regular edition for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Microsoft Windows. It provides the usual means to take a snapshot of the full desktop, an application, a window, object or region. The option to take a snapshot of an object might require some explanation. This option makes it possible to take a screenshot of several elements on the screen. Say you have two open windows on the screen and want to include both in the screenshot but not the rest of the desktop. This can be done by selecting the Object mode which makes use of the [CTRL] key to mark several objects before the screenshot is taken.

A new screenshot will be displayed in the main interface of the software program. It can also be set to be automatically saved to the computer’s hard drive or copied to the Windows Clipboard which can save quite some time if you take screenshots regularly. The filename, image format and quality can also be defined in the options. The defaults are the png image format with a quality setting of 85%.

Several effects can be applied to a screenshot taken with WinSnap. They are divided into the categories coloring, shadow and misc. Coloring can be used to change the coloring of the screenshot to grayscale, sepia or inverted colors. Shadows will add shadows to the outlines of the screenshot and misc makes it possible to add contours, watermarks and to rotate or scale the image.

Hotkeys can be used for the main functions in WinSnap. Each of the five different screen capturing modes can be initiated with a global hotkey for maximum comfort. Another interesting option is the external tool support menu which can be used to add external tools – like image editors – to the software program. Only Microsoft Paint and an option to save the screenshot to the computer desktop are available by default.

WindowSpace on the other hand is a window manager. It is supplied as a 32-bit and 64-bit Windows version.

The software application can be used to work with windows in Windows more effectively. Two of its main functions are window snapping and moving & resizing. The application is completely hotkey driven but some functions can also be used regularly without hotkeys.

Window Snapping describes the process of snapping the active window to another window (outer or inner edges) or the screen border. Windows can be moved or resized with hotkeys which is excellent for users who prefer the keyboard over the mouse.

Several global hotkeys are available to maximize, minimize or hide windows instantly. There are also options to tile or cascade windows.

You can win five licenses for WinSnap and five licenses for WindowSpace. All you need to do is leave a comment below.

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Returnil Premium is a program that can emulate the operating system in a sandbox – a virtual environment – so that changes have no effect on the system itself but only to the sandboxed copy of it. It does not require lots of computer knowledge to run, the only thing that’s out of the ordinary is the (optional) creation of a virtual partition that will be used to store data when the sandbox is active. Here are the steps on how to use the security software:

• Installation: You get some options here most notable to run the system on the hard drive or computer memory. There is also the optional setting to create a virtual partition on the computer system to store data. An alternative would be to use online storage space.
• Running Returnil: You can start Returnil after a restart. Once Returnil is started it will redirected access to the virtual system so that the actual computer system will not be harmed. You can then use whatever application you like. Keep in mind that any changes that have been made to the computer system will be undone after a restart as they have only been made in the virtual system and not the actual one. Here is an example:

  If you bookmark a page while Returnil is running it will show up in the bookmark manager. It will however be gone after a restart of the system.

• Stopping Returnil: The only way to stop Returnil is to reboot the computer system.
• Saving Data: Two ways to save data. The first is to use the virtual partition to store the data on as it will not be erased after a reboot on that partition. The second is by utilizing online storage space. You can sync bookmarks online, save files there, edit Word documents and basically do most things online.

How does Returnil work?

It is obvious that Returnil cannot mirror dozens of Gigabytes of data in the sandboxed environment. There is actually no need to clone the whole system. All that needs to be done is to keep track of the changes to the system and act as a proxy between the computer system and the virtual system.

What are the differences between the free and the premium version of Returnil?

The premium version of Returnil adds quite a few features that make it interesting. The user can choose to cache data in the computer memory or on the hard drive, save sessions to continue working with them at a later point, relocate system folders, to browse and move files between the real hard drive and the virtual drive, shell integration and free customer support.

Returnil Premium adds much needed features to the virtualization software that are missing in the free version. The main benefit of both versions is the simplicity of usage. You only need to press one button to turn the protection on once it has been configured the way you want.

Remember, you can request your Returnil Premium key by following the link on top. Would be still nice to tell us what you think of it.

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If you regularly print out websites or documents you must have noticed that they do not fit perfectly on paper all the time. Websites are usually to large to fit correctly on paper which will move some elements – usually those on the right side that do not fit on the print – to a second paper. This could leave you with menus that will be printed on their own paper, something that is not normally needed at all.

FinePrint offers ways to deal with those pages and a few additional features that make it an interesting software for everyone who prints out those documents regularly.

Installation of FinePrint should go through without problems. It adds itself as a virtual printer to the computer system suggesting to the user that it should be set as the default printer on the system. Either way print jobs can then be send to the software application where they will be listed in the main interface.

You can send multiple print jobs to FinePrint and the software will display them all in its interface. One of the major features of the software is to remove pages that are not needed in the printout. You can flip through the pages and zoom in on them to find out if a page is needed or not. Pages that are not needed can be removed easily with the click of the button.

FinePrint will display the paper savings in the status bar which should give you an indication of its effectiveness.

Removing papers from a print job is one thing, combining pages on one paper is another. The printing software can print 1,2,4 or 8 sheets of the print job on a single sheet. It can also print them double-sided if the printer is supporting that feature. Printing 8 pages on one sheet is good for eagle-eye users or archiving purposes.

Additional options are available to save computer ink. Graphics can be removed from the printouts and the quality can be set to grayscale to use only black ink when printing. You can define borders, margins and bindings and also add stamps (confidential, proof, internal use etc) to the papers.

If the document is ready for printing you can simply send it to one of the connected printers by pressing the printer button in the FinePrint interface.

The only thing that is missing is the ability to remove or move objects on a page as well. Other than that is is a great application to save paper. Could be very handy in office or for users who regularly print out websites and other documents.

We are giving away five FinePrint licenses to lucky readers. If you want to win a copy leave a comment and tell us how many trees you would save with this software ;)

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Clone DVD 2 can copy a full movie DVD or only parts of it. This is divided up in the main interface into the entries Copy DVD Titles and Clone DVD. Cloning describes the process of copying all data on the movie DVD to the computer system or burning them directly to a DVD writer while the first gives the user choices to uncheck items before the process that he does not need. This can be subtitles, additional audio or bonus contents.

There is also a third option which we will explorer later which can be used to write DVD files and ISO / UDF images to disk. The process has been streamlined to give users with little to no experience the same chance of copying a DVD movie than experienced users. Clone DVD 2 will not throw technical terms at the user on every screen. It is quite frankly possible to work with the software even if you never heard about bitrates and video codecs before in your life.

There is one restriction which should be mentioned right in the beginning. Clone DVD 2 does not process copy protected movie DVDs. It does give some suggestions on how to handle them if it is legal in your country.

Cloning and copying movie DVDs works basically the same with the difference that the latter will give the user the option to remove data from the movie DVD. This can be subtitles, audio streams or other contents. The benefit of removing that data is that the quality of the newly created video contents might be higher depending on the format chosen.

The program gives the user several output format options. It is possible to select formats like DVD-5, mini DVD or a custom format where the user can define the output size of the movie. Every additional audio or data stream will reduce the amount of Megabytes to be used for the main movie. It is therefor a natural process to only select those streams that are needed to view the movie.

The process of copying a DVD movie to the hard drive can be described as blazing fast. It took a little bit more than 3 minutes to copy a full movie to the hard drive including converting it to a custom format that is using 1400 Megabytes on the computer’s hard drive.

The third option that is provided by Clone DVD 2 is the option to write already existing ISO or UDF images using a DVD writer. That’s handy if you have time to copy the DVD movie but not the time to burn it directly. Can also be used to burn movies from other sources obviously.

If you want a license for Clone DVD 2 you should let me know in the comments. Make sure you email is included as this is needed to contact you.

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RoboForm is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems and can be installed directly, on a USB device or on mobile devices such as Windows Mobile, Symbian or Blackberry. The software integrates nicely with web browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer or AOL / MSN and displays a toolbar that provides access to all the application’s functions and there is also a System Tray icon providing the same.

The password manager will automatically catch data that is entered in password forms and provides the means to store those passwords in the application so that it can be used to automatically log into the website or service.

Information are stored in so called passcards which do not only contain information like the username or password but additional parameters like cookie length or emails. The information can be protected with a master password which is similar to the feature of the same name in Firefox. The data is therefor protected and save from prying eyes until the master password is provided.

Keyboard shortcuts speed up the process further by providing access to some of the functions and menus. The password manager is only one of the features of RoboForm. It will also aid the user during registration.

It is not a problem to use very long and secure passwords since all passwords are stored in the application. The password generator helps the user by generating a secure password for the website or service.

It provides options to select the length of the password, the allowed characters and the minimum amount of numbers. The password generator will also display the bit strength of the password to give the user an indication of the strength.

Passwords are only one type of information that have to be provided during registration. RoboForm makes use of so called identities that can be used to fill in the other information automatically as well. Identities are data sets that contain information such as names, email addresses, phone numbers and any other type of data the user likes to add.

These information can then be used to automatically fill a registration form which can be a huge time saver for users who regularly sign up for new services on the Internet. Different identities are available to distinguish different users or different environments such as work and home.

Another useful feature of RoboForm is the note taking module. It can be used to store notes securely on the computer. Notes can also be protected by the master password so that no one can access them without providing the master password first. Notes are simple text documents that contain information saved by the user.

RoboForm is an interesting application for users who spend a lot of time on the Internet. If you ever had to register to 20+ services on a day you know how much time it takes to fill out all the information over and over again. Using RoboForm this could have been done in a fraction of the time since the data would have to be entered only once by the user.

We got five RoboForm Pro licenses. If you want one leave a comment below.

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Speed Typing is but one of the aspects of Direct Access, it is more of a workflow optimizer. At its core is the ability to identify commands that are entered by the user. This can be Microsoft Office 2007, Firefox or Notepad. Direct Access displays an overlay when a command gets recognized to provide a visual signal to the user. The command could then be executed by the user by pressing the associated hotkey.

Here are some examples: You can use Direct Access to create text abbreviations. To write Best Regards you could simply type br and hit the confirmation key which will automatically expand the text. Other possibilities include automatic spell checking as it is possible to define commands that do not a confirmation.

Text manipulation is but one of the possibilities that Direct Access offers. It can also be used to launch applications or websites. It is for example possible to launch an email client, Wikipedia or Skype with short commands that can be initiated anywhere. Commands are recognized anywhere, they just have to be typed on the keyboard. To make it clearer, no text input form is needed to write and start commands.

Want to startup the Windows Calculator? Just type calc and press shift afterwards anywhere. Want to display the Network Places in Windows? Type netw and shift to load that interface. Want to start the email client Thunderbird? Type tb and hit shift to load the email client.

Direct Access comes with a set of default commands that can be imported easily to help the user understand the software program. These default commands add all kinds of commands to the software. All examples given above are included in the default command set.

Before we explore the custom command creation we would like to let you know that you can download additional command packages from the website. This includes an html and control panel command set but also auto corrections for various languages like Spanish, German or French.

One of the main ways to increase the workflow is the custom command creation. It is possible to edit a default command in case you want to change the way the command is launched. Commands use various parameters depending on their purpose.

Auto-correction commands require only four parameters while application commands make use of seven. There are four types of commands that can be added to the software program: Autotext, Launch Application, Open Website and Send e-Mail.

To create a new auto-correction command one would simply add the correct phrase, the mistyped phrase and a description. Applications on the other hand require additional work. You need to specify the path, window style, abbreviation, option parameters and run in commands and if you want to use a confirmation key.

Direct Access makes use of a few shortcuts to streamline the process. Shortcuts are available to add the current application, the last executed command or to create a new autotext.

You can further optimize commands with the use of macros. Think of macros as advanced commands that do more than the execution of just one software program. Some examples include positioning the cursor after executing a command, inserting special characters or clipboard contents or nesting commands. The excellent online documentation explains all concepts extensively.

Direct Access increases the workflow almost instantly. The default command set that can be imported makes for a good start but the real strength is the ability to add custom commands that suite the needs of the user in front of the computer monitor.

The software program requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 and is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

You can win one of eight licenses that have been donated by Andrea Nagar, the software developer. Just leave a comment and let us know how you would use this software.

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USB Safely Remove is a USB device manager that can be run on 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. USB devices like removable hard drives, memory sticks or even connected digital cameras become increasingly common but Microsoft failed to add the means to manage the devices effectively. The software program works basically with any hot-plug devices like USB, SATA, Firewire or PCMCIA devices.

One of the problems that Windows users might encounter is that most devices that get connected to the computer will use the name USB mass storage device. That makes it difficulty to safely unplug a specific device from the computer system. There is also no option to hide important devices that (never) get disconnected from the system.

USB Safely Remove provides an easier way to manage the devices in Windows. It uses and displays the actual device names & icons and offers ways to rename devices, change device icons and hide devices from the removal menu. A single hotkey can be used to navigate the menu and safely remove or open the device.

This is however just one function of the software. Another annoying Windows feature is that every card reader slot will be assigned to a drive letter which can easily mean that four or even more device letters are taken by card reader slots that are rarely if any in use. USB Safely Remove can be used to hide empty card reader slots automatically. There is also the option to eject cards directly from a card reader. Any process that would lock the card would be displayed so that it could be taken care of.

The reason if a device cannot be stopped on the computer system will be displayed by USB Safely Remove. It will display the running processes that lock the device so that it cannot be stopped or disabled.

It is probably a good time to explain the differences between stopping and disabling a device. Some devices cannot be stopped but only disabled in the hardware manager. USB Safely Remove automatically detects the type of drive and will stop or disable the device without making the user think about the type of device. It can also enable a disabled device at the next start of the computer system.

Programs can be started after a device gets connected to the computer and before a device gets disconnected or stopped again. One possible use for that feature would be to run the encryption software True Crypt to mount and dismount the encrypted container.

A command line version of the software program is provided as well which can be integrated in batch scripts or simply run from the command line.

One of the most interesting features of USB Safely Remove is the ability to start a stopped device. Without the software one would have to unplug the cable of the device and plug it back in so that Windows recognized it again. With USB Safely Remove it is just a matter of selecting the feature in the right-click menu of the application.

The USB software manager comes with several additional features like the ability to mount storage devices as NTFS folders, managing of drive letters or preventing Windows from assigning specific drive letters to devices.

The software developer created a unique url which can be used to request a serial number for the software program. This url is good for today only which is why we decided to publish the Giveaway right now and not at the usual time.

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Crossover is a commercialized version of Wine, a re-implementation of the Win32 API, which allows to run Windows software naively on the operating system. Crossover Mac Pro is therefor capable of running Windows software in Mac OS X while Crossover Linux Pro can do the same under Linux.

The benefits of this solution are obvious. Crossover (or Wine for that matter) provide the means to run Windows software directly in another operating system. This is a difference to dual boot systems where the user has to switch between the systems and virtual machines which also need time to boot and do not provide the same levels of performance.

It should be mentioned that it is not possible to run all Windows applications with Crossover. Codeweavers have created a table with compatibility ratings for windows applications.

The benefits of Crossover over Wine are noteworthy as well. Crossover, being a commercialized version of Wine, comes with several functions not found in Wine. This includes graphical and one-click installer for Windows applications among other things.

Codeweavers officially supports several applications and games in both versions of Crossover.

Applications:

• Microsoft Office 2007, 2003, XP, 2000 and 97
• Microsoft Visio
• Microsoft Project
• Quicken
• and others

Games:

• World of Warcraft
• Team Fortress 2
• Civilization IV
• Half-Life 2
• and others

You can win one of ten licenses for Crossover Mac Pro or Crossover Linux Pro. Please mention your operating system in the comment so that I know which version you need.

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DriveCrypt is a 1344 Bit disk encryption software using cryptographic algorithms such as AES, Blowfish or Tea 32 that can encrypt partitions, entire hard drives (with the exception of the boot drive) and USB devices. Besides that it can also create encrypted containers on storage devices so that only part of the space is reserved for the encrypted data.

DriveCrypt makes use of on-the-fly decryption to ensure that only the data that is currently needed resides in the computer’s memory to minimize the risk if someone would record and analyse the data in memory.

DriveCrypt is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. Installation is flawless as is the setup of the encrypted storage space. The software starts in simple mode which reduces the elements on the screen to a bare minimum. Experienced users can switch to the advanced mode which is providing them with more options in the interface.

The Simple Mode basically consists of four buttons which are used to create and manage data safes. It is possible to create a new safe, load an existing safe, dismount all safes or to scan for safes on the computer system.

There are usually no safes after the installation and it is up to the user to create the first encrypted safe. It is necessary to define a few parameters like the size of the container and the password but basically anything else including the algorithm is selected by the software program. It is possible to use a normal password or one that spans across four lines to increase security.

The advanced mode provides all the missing options for experienced users. They can select the file system and the encryption algorithm. The ability to create a encrypted partition is only available in the advanced mode like several other options:

• Invisible Containers: Create hidden containers in encrypted containers.
• Hide Data In Music Files: Add data to music files
• Hot Disk Encryption: Encrypt removable devices and make the data inaccessible once their are unplugged from the computer system.
• Password Security: Master Password for administrators, Restricted second user Passwords
  and Second user Password Expiration
• Password Sniffing Protection: protects against password sniffers like trojans or keyloggers.
• Anti Dictionary or Brute Force Attack mechanism: Slows down brute force attacks.
• Disk Wiping: DriveCrypt is able to delete the free space on a storage device so that the data is not recoverable.
• External Hardware Support: Works with fingerprint and smartcard readers, as well as USB token
• Works on any Storage Medium: Works on hard drives, removable devices including CDs and DVDs, basically anything that can be used to store data.

DriveCrypt offers an easy way to create encrypted containers for data on their storage devices. You can win one out of 50 licenses for DriveCrypt by writing a comment below.

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Both versions of TuneUp are available for Microsoft Windows PCs and Apple Macintosh computers with the limitation that it is currently only working on Intel Based Mac’s running 10.5 or greater. Installation is uncomplicated and the TuneUp bar loads automatically the next time iTunes is started on the computer. The last step before the features can be used is the registration process which takes only a few seconds in iTunes.

TuneUp adds four options to iTunes: Cleaning mislabeled music, finding missing cover art, exploring music and concert notifications.

Adding Meta Tags:

The Clean tab makes TuneUp search for missing meta data in its database. This is simply done by dragging and dropping songs into the TuneUp sidebar. The songs will be analyzed automatically. TuneUp will divide hits into matches and likely matches. Matches have a success rate of 99% while likely matches are about 80-90% correct on average.

All missing metadata, including album art, will be added to the song or album. This tab also provides access to a save all button which is available in the matches and likely matches tab. It is for example possible to save all matches directly in one go and evaluate the likely matches before saving them separately.

Album Cover Art Finder:

TuneUp will automatically scan the iTunes library for songs or albums that are missing cover art and display possible hits in its sidebar. Four different possible images are shown for every album that is missing cover art and it is up to the user to pick the one that is fitting best. Impatient users can click on the Save All button to save all cover art automatically. This will automatically select the first match as the new cover art for the music.

This is a very convenient way of adding missing cover album art to a music collection. Users who do not rely solely on iTunes will be delighted to hear that the cover art is integrated into the music directly which makes it available to other applications as well.

Now Playing:

This combines music recommendations with videos taken directly from Youtube and other news about the song or artist. The videos play directly in iTunes and there are also links to buy merchandise, tickets or music.

Concerts:

This tab will inform the user about local concerts of bands that are in the music collection.

Finally the differences between TuneUp and TuneUp Gold. The free version of the iTunes plugin is limited to 50 cover arts and 500 song cleanups. That’s the only difference.

You can win a copy of TuneUp Gold with a comment on this article. Let us know what software you are currently using to play and manage your music.

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PowerDVD 8 Ultra is (high definition) movie player with lots of extras like organizing the movie collection or creating movie remixes. The emphasize however lies on movie playback.

PowerDirector 7 Ultra is a advanced video editing software that is an all in one solution from capturing videos to producing them.

Cyberlink DVD Suite 6 on the other hand is a collection of various tools that included PowerDVD and PowerDirector plus many others that can be used for creating disk labels, backing up disks or copying disks.

PowerDVD 8 Ultra

The installation of PowerDVD 8 did not take longer than a minute and users of previous versions of the software will notice that there have not been drastic changes to the graphical user interface.

One of the main selling points of PowerDVD 8 is its support of high definition video formats including playback of Blu-Ray video content. The software is excellent for High-Definition and Home Theater enthusiasts who want to enjoy full high definition video and audio support. It should be noted that it is still possible to watch movie DVDs and other movie and video formats without problems.

PowerDVD 8 comes with a movie organizer that can be used to index and rate movies. This feature can connect you with PowerDVD’s Online Community to search for movies online and read the reviews of other users. There is also the option to create so called movie remixes and upload them to the community website.This feature makes it possible to add sounds, graphics or text to movies to personalize them.

PowerDirector 7 Ultra

PowerDirector 7 Ultra is a video editing tool. It can be used to turn videos on the computer’s hard drive (or digital camcorders) into movie disks that can be played on the computer or standalone movie players. Supported are the creation of Blu-Ray disks, DVD, VCD, SVCD and Double-Layer DVDs.

A second option is to convert videos into other formats so that they can be uploaded to the Internet or played on devices without optical drive including Apple’s iPod or iPhone and Sony’s PSP.

As video captures are concerned. PowerDirector 7 was able to identify virtually any device that was tested including DV, HDV, analogue and digital capture cards, webcams or soundcards.

PowerDirector 7 comes with a set of automated editing tools such as extreme backlight correction, noise reduction, red-eye removal or enhanced video stabilization.

Many users will probably be happy with a software that can capture a video that they have taken with their digital camcorder to turn it into a movie disk that can be played on any movie player.

Experienced users will love the advanced editing features of PowerDirector 7 Ultra which can add effects, subtitles and audio features to the movie before burning it to disk.

CyberLink DVD Suite 6 Ultra

CyberLink DVD Suite 6 Ultra is a multimedia software for working with high definition video and photos. It basically includes all the features of PowerDvd, PowerDirector, PowerProducer, Power2Go, PowerBackup, InstantBurn 5, PowerDVD Copy, LabelPrint 2 and PowerStarter 6 albeit in last years editions (the latest available version is CyberLink DVD Suite 7 Ultra).

Concentrating on the additional features: What does Cyberlink DVD Suite 6 Ultra put on the table? Many additional, smaller, software products have been added to the DVD Suite. They can be used for various tasks such as creating disk labels, making 1:1 copies of disks or backing up data on disks.

Up for grabs are two licenses for each product. All you need to do is to reply with a comment in this thread. Winners will be notified by email.

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Today it is BitDefender time here at Ghacks. The guys at BitDefender are donating one copy of Total Security 2009, two copies of Internet Security 2009 and another two copies of Antivirus 2009. One of the first questions that comes to mind is about the differences between those products. We would like to address them briefly in the beginning and concentrate afterwards on BitDefender Total Security 2009 as it makes use of all features including those of the two other products.

BitDefender Antivirus 2009 is a antivirus software program that combines a signature based and heuristic approach. It also incorporates protection against phishing, identity theft and provides instant messaging encryption.

Bitdefender Internet Security 2009 adds a firewall, parental controls and a file vault on top of that.

BitDefender Total Security 2009 finally introduces a backup module and a system cleaner in addition to all the features of the other two clients.

The choice of product depends obviously on the needs of the user. A user with a working software firewall might be inclined to pass on the two security suites that add a firewall to his system while someone without any protection might be inclined to grab the top product.

All three software programs can be downloaded as trial versions to make sure that they are compatible with the system’s software and hardware. This is also an excellent way of verifying that you can handle the software and do not encounter to many difficulties during usage. As an example, a software firewall that would throw cryptic error messages at the user might be the dream of every computer freak but a regular user would surely be swamped.

The installation requires a reboot of the system in the end. One of the first windows that a user will come in contact with is the Configuration Wizard which will walk the user through the steps to configure the product accordingly. Experts can skip the wizard but need to configure the modules manually in the main interface then.

The wizard will – among other things – update the product over the Internet and perform an antivirus scan on the system to make sure that it has not been infected already with a computer virus. It does not take to long on the other hand even if you read thoroughly.

The Bitdefender firewall is quite adaptive and let me connect with various programs to the Internet without bringing up “Do you want to allow” messages. Email and web browsers for example where working without difficulties right of the box.

The main interface is divided into a basic and advanced view. The basic view has been designed for inexperienced users while the advanced view provides access to in depth statistics and settings that would frustrate the inexperienced users.

The Dashboard is the central hub of the software program. It displays statistics and provides a quick overview of so called System Information. This gives access to to all kind of system related settings like startup items, services, hosts or processes.

The different modules of the security software are easily accessible on the menu on the left side. A click on the antispam module loads the settings of that module giving the user options to disable or enable the module, to change the level of protection or to manage whitelists and blacklists.

The layout of most modules is similar to the one above. Every module can be disabled and configured separately. One interesting module is the Vulnerability module that will query Windows Updates for updates and patches and makes it possible to install them directly in BitDefender.

The same menu will also check a few applications, in this case Skype and Firefox, for updates with options to download and install them automatically as well.

The program has been designed very carefully with the user in mind. The two modes make it a great choice for all kinds of users and the protections are extensive.

BitDefender has also created a community called Malware City which provides information and tips not only for BitDefender users but for everyone.

You can win one copy of BitDefender Total Security 2009, two copies of BitDefender Internet Security 2009 and another two copies of BitDefender Antivirus 2009 if you reply in the comments. Let us know what software you are currently running to protect your computer system.

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That’s a tough field to compete against and any email client would have to offer something unique to the user. It does not necessarily have to be a feature that no one else has, it can also be great support or great automatism or anything else that is seen by a user as something that makes the software invaluable.

The Bat is a professional email client. This becomes obvious for the first time during installation where you will be asked where you want to store the account data which should not be confused with the installation directory of the email client. Every account can be placed in a different location. Support are POP3, IMAP4 and MAPI protocols.

One of the most important aspects of email clients is the ability to import settings and emails from other clients. The Bat provides an extensive set of import and export options. It can import email messages from generic eml, msg or unix mailboxes but also from specific email clients such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Office Outlook or Microsoft Outlook Express. Extensive import options are also available for the Address Book which can import contact information directly from Microsoft products and various other formats like LDIF (Thunderbird can export into this format), vCards or plain text.

You need to add the email accounts manually on the other hand. Most settings however are automatically filled by The Bat. It is for instance possible to add a new Gmail account in a few easy steps with minimal user interaction.

The Bat has been designed for power users and professionals. Yes, regular users can make use of the email client as well and they will be perfectly happy with it but its options to automate and configure excel most – if not all – other email clients.

Here is but one example. Each mail folder in The Bat can be configured with its own unique properties. This can be email templates but more importantly a unique identity. It is possible to set a From Name and From Address for every folder in the bat so this is always being used for mail in that folder. (no more having to remember to picking the right email account before sending the mail)

Email templates are another interesting feature. Unlike signatures email templates can be used to fill out parts of emails that are used regularly. The Bat comes with a few predesigned templates for replying, forwarding or reading confirmations but also with the means of creating sophisticated email templates for virtually any purpose.

What else do you get?

• Hardware Tokens: The Bat! Professional is an email client that offers secure authentication on POP3/SMTP servers using hardware tokens and transparent, on-the-fly encryption of the email message base, address books and configuration files.
• Built-In Backup and Restore: Automated email backups can be configured in the email client.
• Plugins: Plugins expand the functionality of the email client further.
• Internal PGP implementation based on OpenSSL.
• Anti-virus defense: The bat does not start scripts automatically and uses its own html rendering engine.
• Smart Sorting Office: A powerful filtering system.
• Message Parking: Protect messages so that they can not be deleted.
• Microsoft Exchange Connectivity

The Bat offers a wealth of features that you cannot find in other email clients. It is highly configurable and can automate many processes to aid the user in his daily routine.

You can download a free fully working trial version of The Bat (Home or Professional) from the company’s website. This is probably the best way to test the client to see if it suits your needs. My bet? It will.

You can win one of five licenses for The Bat Professional by writing a comment. Let us know which email client you are using currently.

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Goodsync provides the typical left / right interface that many file synchronization software programs use. One interesting aspect is that it can not only be used to keep files in sync but also to backup them. Both operations are started as so called jobs. A job consists of a few steps that the user has to configure.

A file synchronization requires the selection of two folders that should be kept in sync. This can be used to sync emails, documents, music and anything practically anything else that is needed in more than one folder.

The analyze button will scan both directories and display the folders, files, sizes and additional information of both sides. The program will also list the space requirements on both hard drives if the synchronization is started. All files and the direction that they are copied will be shown as well.

Goodsync can also change the display mode so that only conflicts, errors and other information such as the sync state will be displayed.

Users can finetune the process before starting the synchronization. It is for example possible to exclude folders or files from synchronization or change their direction. The default sync direction is a two-way sync but it is possible to change that to a one-way sync easily in the options.

Filters can be used to exclude certain files or folders from the synchronization. One of the most important aspects of a file synchronization software is the support of storage space. GoodSync supports synchronization and backups on local hard drives, network drives, ftp, sftp, Amazon S3, WebDav and WinMobile hardware. It is therefor no problem to sync files from ftp or sftp to the local computer.

Once everything has been configured according to your wishes you can the automatic options. It’s much like a scheduler. You can set the interval or event when the file synchronization software should analyze or sync files and what the software should do if conflicts are encountered.

The options are also the place to create global filters and to change other options like the buffer size or if locked files should be copied.

Experienced users will like the sheer amount of command line options that are provided by the file synchronization software. There is practically a switch for every option of the software to synchronize or backup files. It is possible to import or export the job list to run it on multiple computers.

Every user is able to create file synchronization or backup jobs with GoodSync in a few easy steps. Experts will love all the settings and options to tweak the software.

Five licenses of GoodSync are up for grabs. To win one simply leave a comment and tell us what you would sync or backup with it.

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ConvertXtoDVD is a very popular video conversion software which can turn burn pretty much any video format to DVD. One could say it is an all-purpose software program for users who want to burn video files to DVD. Supported video formats are avi, divx, xvid, mov, mkv, flv plus others including files from digital camcorders, TV/Sat or, capture cards. No external codecs are needed to operate the software.

While we are discussing technical details, the software program runs on 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP or Windows Vista. The whole process of creating a video DVD of video files on the computer is more or less foolproof. You basically only need to add the video files from the computer and start their conversion into a format that can be burned on DVD.

Experts on the other hand should not worry. You can manage every detail of the process if you like so. It is for example possible to change menu titles, aspect ratio, add subtitles or audio streams.

Several options like the selection of DVD menus, the DVD size or the encoding quality can be set in the program’s settings. This needs to be done only once unless you want to change the settings again. Support for various audio and subtitle formats is extensive as well. Some of the popular audio formats are ac3, dts, mp3, wma or ogg and some of the subtitle formats are srt, sub, idx, ssa or opensubtitles.

Another interesting option is the ability to merge videos. If you got many small video files, say Youtube videos, you might be inclined to combine them into larger parts especially if they are parts of one video.

The conversion is pretty fast. It took about ten minutes to convert three 22 minute episodes of a popular British sitcom on a Intel Wolfdale 3.0 dual core system.

ConvertXtoDVD provides one of the easiest and most comfortable ways to burn video files to DVD that can be played in software and video DVD players. It can really get easier than this. Experts will love all the settings and options that the program provides.

Blindwrite is the second product that can be won today. It is a software that has been designed specifically to copy game DVDs. The main purpose of the software is to create working backups of game (or other media) DVDs that can be used instead of the originals.

This can be important for households with children who love to play around with everything that is shiny. Can also be a great idea for traveling or holidays. Instead of taking the expensive originals you simply take a backup copy that can be destroyed after the trip.

Blindwrite offers three modes. It can copy (from disk to disk), read (from disk to storage) or write (from storage to disk) disks. The whole process has been designed to be as easy as possible. That’s excellent for inexperienced users who simply want to create a working copy of their disks.

Blindwrite supports a wide variety of disk image formats including bin, iso, mds, ccd and bwt image formats. Each of these can be burned to disk with Blindwrite.

Both applications by VSO Software are multi-lingual, small in size and easy to work with. Good luck to everyone!

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The software developer is providing access to a free version of Sandboxie on his website which has a few limitations compared to the commercial version.

As the name suggests Sandboxie makes use of the concept of so called sandboxes (also called virtual environments by some). The main advantage of running applications in a sandbox is that everything that happens in there stays in there. If you land on a website that uses a 0-day browser exploit to download and launch malicious code on your computer you can rest assured that the rest of the system – that is the part outside of the sandbox – will not be affected by the virus. And the sandbox itself can simply be cleared so that the malicious software has no means of affecting the computer system.

To make it even more visual: Sandboxie acts as a border that is impenetrable for applications that get started inside. Many of these applications usually interact with other system components, say a web browser that is storing cache on the hard drive or storing new bookmarks on the computer. Every attempt to interact with the computer system will be intercepted by Sandboxie and emulated so that the application “thinks” that everything is ok.

These changes on the other hand are not permanently and once the application or the sandbox have been terminated they are gone. But don’t worry: Sandboxie is still providing the means to save data that has been created or downloaded into the sandbox. Think of a document that you are downloading from a website, you might want to keep it even after the browser session closes.

It is possible to configure resource access rights for files running in the sandbox. These are left blank on purpose by default but it would be possible to allow the web browser Firefox to access its bookmarks file directly so that bookmarks get stored permanently. (There is an option in Sandboxie’s settings that allows direct access to the bookmarks of Opera, Firefox and Internet Explorer and another setting for email clients.

The installation runs through without problems or user interaction. The system is ready to run applications in the sandbox right after installation. Sandboxie integrates itself in the right-click context menu (Run Sandboxed) and it is also possible to drag and drop applications into the program interface to run them sandboxed.

The control interface is listing the programs that are running in the sandbox. This is helpful because there is virtually no way of telling if it is running in a Sandbox by looking at the program window.

The commercial version of Sandboxie introduces several interesting and helpful features. It makes it possible to run multiple sandboxes on a computer system. This can be useful to launch set of tools in different sandboxes which is great to isolate programs further.

The Forced Folders and Forced Programs options become available after registration.

Forced Folders:

This options allows you to select folders (this can also be a drive letter) and force all applications starting from there to run in sandboxed mode. Some useful applications for this are CD / DVD drives or a downloads folder for Internet downloads.

Forced Programs:

Allows the user to select files that should always be run in sandboxed mode. This is very useful to make sure that an application is always running in the sandbox without having to launch it that way at every program start.

The developer of Sandboxie was nice enough to give us six licenses of his security software program. You should know the drill by know. Just leave a comment letting us know what you think / like about the program and you are eligible to win a copy of it.

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One copy of Do-Organizer will be awarded to RG who made the suggestion. The other copies of both software programs are up for grabs. Lets start with a review of Do-Organizer first:

Do-Organizer is a Personal Information Manager (PIM) that helps the user stay on top of everything. The company is offering a fully functional 30-days test version on their website. The personal information manager will run on Windows 2000, XP or Windows Vista.

The first thing that users will notice is the clean but stunning graphical interface. First time users will have to get accommodated to the plethora of icons in the main interface but it should not take long until they feel comfortable especially since everything can be moved around and hidden like in Microsoft Office 2007.

Probably the first step after starting the organizer should be data import from other sources.

Do-Organizer can import Contacts, Tasks, Appointments, Resources, Emails, Bookmarks or Finance Transactions from files. There is always the option to import the data from csv files with additional file types available depending on the data that should be imported.

There is one special import option for Outlook users which makes it even easier for Outlook users to import contacts, appointments or tasks into the personal information manager. All data can be managed in several ways. Contacts for example can be placed into folders like friends, work, important or family with the option to add new folders to the mix. Each contact can be edited to add or change information. It is furthermore possible to use flags to be able to identify items more easily.

Do-Organizer is a general, very comprehensive, all purpose personal information manager that is covering all the basics from managing contacts to appointments and tasks. One of the unique selling points of the software is the ability to link (or associate) items. It is for example possible to link an event with contacts which aids the information flow.

Other modules that Do-Organizer ships with are planners, journals, a password vault, a mind mapping module or a finance and spreadsheet module.

The software comes with a small toolbar that acts independently from the main program. The toolbar docks by default to the top center of the computer screen but it can be moved around freely or closed. It provides quick access to the most important modules of the personal information manager.

Do-Organizer is a very comprehensive personal information manager. It can be installed to a USB device as it does not write information to the Registry which makes it an excellent travel companion that keeps all important data in one secure place.

TexNotes Pro is the second application that is up for grabs today. TexNotes Pro is a feature rich productivity tool, some would say text organizer. What it basically does is that it can store all kinds of data giving the user the means at hand to organize it the way he wants.

Data is divided into so called Notebooks and Notes. Notebooks are folders that contain notes. Notes can contain all kinds of data that the user adds to them while Notebooks are simply the table of contents.

The productivity tools provided by TexNotes Pro are quite extensive. They range from templates and styles to hyperlinks, annotations, anchors, bookmarks and OLE objects (for example Microsoft Office, Open Office documents, PDF documents or even sounds)

The formatting options are as extensive as the productivity tools. Everything that’s in Rich Text Editors is also available in TexNotes Pro. Users can add tables, paragraphs, change fonts and styles, add images and more.

One of the most interesting options of TexNotes Pro is the ability to publish a document as a executable ebook. That’s basically an ebook that can be executed on the computer right away without needing any additional software. Content can also be exported into various formats such as html, rich text format, html with css and even doc or docx.

Four copies of Do-Organizer and 10 copies of TexNotes Pro can be won by filling out a comment below. If you already know those applications you are welcome to add your thoughts in the comments.

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