The user of MySpace Grab can then double-click on any listed song to listen to it. The small window that opens contains a small embedded music player that is similar to those found on many websites and a big download button. Pressing the download button will immediately open a save file dialog window which can be used to save the selected song on the local computer.

The process is pretty straightforward and great for saving the occasional song from MySpace. It becomes long-winded if the user wants to download several songs from MySpace as it would mean to repeat the double-click song, click download button in new window process over and over again.

Selected urls can be added to favorites in the software program to access them faster and easier the next time the program is started. MySpace Grab is a free 400 Kilobyte download that is compatible with all Microsoft Windows operating systems from Windows 95 to Windows Vista.

The user can select the time zones that he wants to display at the same time. By default five time zones are displayed: London, Los Angeles, New York, New Delhi and Sydney. The software program makes use of balloon tips to display the time zones which means that balloon tips have to be activated for the program to work properly. The easiest way to enable balloon tips again is by using Microsoft PowerToys.

It takes one click to display the configured timezones in the balloon tip. A left-click on the system tray icon will display the time zones. A right-click opens up a context menu with configuration options. This can be used to add and remove time zones from the display.

Microsoft Time Zone uses roughly four Megabytes which is acceptable for users who regularly have to check the times in various time zones.

Pick Me is a friendly computer program that will make the decision for the user. The user basically points it to a directory on his hard drive and selects the extensions that the software program should consider. Pick Me will then pick a number of files that meet the criteria from the hard drive and present the choices to the user.

The default number of results is 10 which can be changed in the options as well. Pick Me displays the results in a list. A click on a result will highlight it in Windows Explorer which means it takes just a hit on the enter key to start the playback.

The software program could need a fee additional features like the ability to save the preferences or multiple profiles for different file types, e.g. music, videos and text. It would also be great if there would be an option to automatically pick and play the first file in the list.

The application has been created over at Donation Coder so chances are good that the changes will be implemented. The software is completely portable and requires the Visual Basic 6 Runtimes which should be installed on most computer systems.

A complex activity on the other hand adds due dates, reminders, tags, context, additional users and contents to the basic information. Each activity can be made up of sub-activities.

Contacts can be invited from various sources including Konolive accounts but also external sources like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, MSN or Plaxo. Keep in mind that the login credentials have to be supplied to be able to do so.

KonoLive can be an interesting alternative to other GTD software programs if the users do not mind the use of Adobe Air. The software has been designed with ease and mind and it is indeed easy and comfortable to work with other users in KonoLive.

Update: KonoLive has been updated in the meantime. A free KonoLive 2Go version for the web and a desktop version called KonoLive Pro.

You can find out more about KonoLive Pro here on the project page, and here about KonoLive 2 Go. KonoLive 2 Go is an Internet application that users can run from a web browser.

The software will run on any PC with Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista installed. The only other requirement is an installation of Apple’s iTunes software. Pod To PC can copy music, videos and playlists from a supported device to the computer. Music and videos can be previewed and filtered on the iPod or iPhone prior to transferring them.

One interesting option is to automatically transfer all music and video files to the computer that are not already available in the local installation of iTunes. This makes it ideal to sync music and video collections. Could also be handy if you had to reinstall the operating system or iTunes on a computer after a crash to transfer all the music and videos back to the computer from the iPod or iPhone.

Duplicate tracks will not be copied. It is furthermore possible to copy full or partial playlists. All the related meta information such as ratings will also be transferred and preserved.

Pod To PC is an interesting software program for Windows users looking for a software to transfer data from an iPod or iPhone to the PC.

Shape Collage can be used to create various pre-configured sahpes like hearts, rectangles or circles but also custom shapes like text entered by the user or a custom drawing which can be created from within the photo collage software easily. Some of the shapes require do obviously require more photos than others. Take for example a circle and the letters Ghacks.

Additional options include the customization of the background which can be a solid background color, transparent or a selected photo. It is furthermore possible to create a border around the photo collage, select a size for the final image, pick a photo size, select the number of photos that should be used and define the photo spacing.

Shape Collage is a very sophisticated easy to use software program to create photo collages. It comes with all the features expected and provides access to some interesting unique features that most other photo collage applications are not offering.

Enter Xecutor a multi-lingual (German, English and Spanish) software program that can be used to load software automatically at any time if the computer system is running. It can even import Windows autostart entries from both the Windows Registry and autostart file and include them in its own list although it is not recommended to import security software or system processes that way.

The main interface of Xecutor divides the applications into startup, shutdown and scheduler tabs which can be used to launch software automatically during startup, shutdown or user defined when the computer system is running.

Many of configuration options are available for all three types of situations. Executable files from the computer’s hard drive can be picked by using the file browser. It is possible to add parameters, to configure wait times and an option to minimize the software after launch.

Launch conditions can be defined. The day of the week the software should be launched can be configured. Applications can be set to only launch before or after a specific time. The Scheduler adds another option: The possibility to start an application at a specific time or in intervals. The last option is to add a question before and a message after execution.

Several important locations will be scanned in the process including running programs, browser plugins, winlogon notifications, browser helper objects, Internet Explorer toolbars or Windows Services. FreeFixer does not rate the findings which means that it is up to the user to perform further research to find out if they are dangerous or not. The software makes however use of a whitelist to remove system processes, services and other official files from the list of results to narrow down the result list to potentially dangerous ones.

Each item will be listed with its name and location, other relvant values depending on the type of item and options to lookup information about it on the Internet and to delete it.

Results can be saved in a log file for further processing. Selected items can be fixed (that means deleted) by clicking on the Fix button in the software. It is usually a good idea to perform a search on the Internet before deleting any files from the list. Some can be excluded just by looking at their names while some do not give the slightest hint at what they are.

Freefixer makes use of a database that is located on the developers website which contains additional information about each item. One interesting aspect of the database is that it will display user actions by displaying a pie chart detailing how many users kept and removed the item from their computer system.

The basic actions that can be defined in the Windows application monitor are to close the application if the memory or cpu usage exceeds parameters, to start additional programs if the application starts or ends or to turn off the computer when it ends. The advanced rules are only available in the commercial version of the application monitor.

Kiwi will collect statistics about application usage and resource consumption. The Windows application monitor will for example dsiplay the average running time per day or session, the average memory usage and the maximum peak memory usage.

The last option that might be interesting for some users is to define minimum and maximum allowed working set in Megabytes. Kiwi uses just a few Megabytes of computer memory and about 30 Megabytes of virtual memory while minimized which should be acceptable for users who would like to monitor their applications and make use of the additional options of the program.

The animated gif maker is able to load Quicktime movies of any size. It displays the movies in its interface with the option to navigate frame by frame. The option to play the movie is missing in the application but that’s not that problematic. It is possible to draw a rectangle on the screen to pick part of the screen that should be turned into an animated gif.

The user can use a slider or the frame by frame navigation to grab frames of the movie. The process is unfortunately complicated as there is no way to grab multiple frames at once which means that it is necessary to click on the Grab button for every frame that should be added to the animated gif.

The means to pick a frame range would add much comfort to the software program. Once all frames have been selected the Save button will save the animated gif on the computer system. The top bar provides access to two options that allow to change the size of the animated gif and the display mode. The size has to be entered in pixels, for example 80×60 or 400×300.

Mov2Gif is easy to use and everyone should be able to create animated gifs with ease. It could use some comfort but this will probably only bother users who create animated gifs with it regularly.

File and Image Uploader (via Download Squad) is just one software program for that task. It supports the surprisingly large number of 70+ file upload sites on the Internet including the popular file hosters Rapidshare, Megaupload and Filefactory. It should also be mentioned that several premium services are supported as well if the user has access to a premium account.

It usually takes only a few clicks to upload a file to an image hoster. A click on the + sign in the software will display a file browser which can be used to select one or multiple files from the computer system. After that it is only a matter of selecting the right file host for the task to start the upload.

Premium account owners can specify that they want to use their premium account for the uploads. It is also possible to queue or pause the uploads and select to upload files or images. Possible restrictions of the currently select file hosts will be displayed in a form at the bottom.

The files will be added to the main interface and the upload progress will be displayed. The name of the file and the link to the upload host will be displayed once the upload has been completed. The embed codes of uploaded images will be displayed in the software as well. This ensures that all relevant information are displayed directly in the software program and that the links can be checked even at a later time. Parallel uploading is supported by File And Image Uploader.

One of the main features was the ability to search for archives in folders. All discovered file archives would be automatically added to the queue and processed. It had some limitations though. The major limitation was that it could not unpack software installers. It is sometimes important to be able to unpack an installer to check the files that will be installed before starting the process. Sometimes a single file might even be all that is needed.

Universal Extractor works pretty much the same way that Extract Now does. It integrates itself into the right-click context menu and can process multiple software archives at once. It can be used to unpack multiple archives or installer that reside in the same directory at once.

The last sentence contains the biggest feature and a limitation. The main feature is that it can extract all kinds of software installers so that the files of each package become available. The limitation is that it cannot search in folders for archives.

To sum it up: Universal Extractor supports additional formats and the important software installers that Extract Now does not. The only unique feature of Extract Now is the ability to search for archives in folders which might not be needed at all depending on the amount of archives on a computer system.

The software program provides two basic options. The first is to start services or applications by moving the mouse into one of the four corners of the computer monitor. Options like running a software program, locking the computer or handling windows. One action for every corner can be defined. It does work however best for the corners that are not occupied by the Taskbar especially if the taskbar is set to auto-hide.

The second option is to add the same set of functions to mouse movements. Only this time it can be activated by pressing the [Windows X] key while moving the mouse to the left, right, up or down.

The software program uses about 5 Megabytes of computer memory when running.

Eric Wong who already contributed quite a few applications mentioned his software program Windows Extractor which can be used to easily extract controls, elements and windows from the parent application and provide access to them in their own window which can either be displayed in fullscreen right away or the default size which allows for resizing and moving the extracted window contents.

Windows Extractor offers some interesting applications. It is for instance possible to extract videos out of websites and play them in their own window. Even more interesting is the option to move windows and controls out of applications.

Imagine extracting a window out of an image editor like Adobe Photoshop or software development application like Visual Studio and moving that window to a second monitor screen.

Working with Windows Extractor has been designed to be as simple as possible. The application uses two hotkeys to extract windows at mouse position and restore the extracted window back into its original interface. The F10 key extracts the window at mouse position while F11 restores its position. The hotkeys can be changed in the program interface.

Two sizing modes are available: Full Screen and Windowed. Full Screen mode will show the extracted window in fullscreen while the windowed mode allows for resizing and moving. It can happen that the program crashes if a Window cannot cope with the extraction.

Windows Extractor requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 or higher and compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP and windows Vista. The Source Code is provided on the homepage of the software program as well.

Hitman Pro is making use of eight spyware scanning engines. It’s a mixture of free and trial versions. Among the software programs are popular spyware cleaners like Spybot Search and Destroy, Ad-aware and Webroot Spysweeper. Each application can be selected to be included in the system scan or excluded from it. Besides those eight engines can include the commercial antivirus applications TrendMicro Sysclean and McAfee Virusscan if the user has a license for those applications.

The options contain several additional interesting features that require some explanation. The user can select to use the Browser security plugins that is offered by some of the anti-spyware applications, install security updates and configure least user access levels for his web browser.

The first run takes a bit longer than the future ones because all selected applications will be downloaded from the Internet. Hitman Pro is installing the automatically on the user system with minimal to no user input required. Once the applications have been downloaded the system scan begins. Each application is run after the other and the results are visible in the application itself and in Hitman Pro at the end.

This process can slow down the computer quite a bit and it is probably a good idea to let the scans run automatically and do something different in the meantime. One aspect that is not optimal is the fact that most of these anti-spyware tools run a permanent process even if the main application is not running.

This can create quite some noise in the background and experienced users might prefer to install and uninstall the applications manually instead. The idea itself is great however and it would have been really nice if Hitman would be able to use the scanning engines and definitions without having to install the software programs itself. That’s probably wishful thinking though.

Mz Cpu Accelerator is one of those applications. No, it’s not one of those applications that try to accelerator applications by dividing them on the various cpu cores of the system. This Windows tweaking tool accelerates the active application by raising its priority.

The same functionality is available manually when opening the Windows Taskmanager. A right-click on a task provides the Priority menu where the user can set the process priority from low to realtime. The manual method has to disadvantages:

• The user has to make the changes in the task manager
• The changes are gone when the task is terminated

Advanced Shortcuts Composer was reviewed two days ago which made it possible to set the priority of a process in the shortcut which would be permanently if the application would be started using that shortcut. That however is not possible for all processes.

Back to the Cpu Accelerator. The user can select the priority of the active application between above normal, high and realtime. The main window of the tweaking tool is also providing access to various startup options and displays the currently active application. This comes in handy when testing processes and applications that have been added to the exclusion list. If a user does not want an application to be affected from the Cpu Accelerator then he could add it to the exclusion list.

Mz Cpu Accelerator comes with a cpu manager as well which can be used to assign certain cpu cores to applications. The software program can be placed in the system tray where it provides quick access to changing the priority level, managing cpu cores and disabling the software program which is also possible by using a keyboard hotkey.

The software runs fine on all Windows operating systems up to Windows Vista and requires the .net Framework 2.0 to be installed.

All new functions can be easily identified by their light-green icons. The software program adds five new key features to the right-click menu. Move To Folder and Copy To Folder entries have been added which make use of bookmarked folders and the system folders. The Delete menu entry was enhanced as well. It provides access to moving the deleted files and folders to the trashbin or to delete them permanently. Experienced users already know that it is possible to delete files and folders permanently by holding down the shift key before choosing to delete them.

The fourth addition provides functions to copy the name or path of a folder or file and to open the command prompt from the selected folder.

The last addition is the customize menu which provides tools to hide entries from the right-click menu. It’s apparent that the free version was cut down in functionality to have a selling point for the shareware version. The free version does add a few entries to the right-click menu which might make it interesting for some users. Most of the functions can also be added (or removed) by editing the Registry manually.

Application Monitor is a portable application that can monitor software programs in intervals. If a monitored application stopped running Application Monitor will start it anew. The setup does not provide any difficulties even for inexperienced users.

It basically comes down to selecting applications from the computer, adding a descriptive name, selecting the interval for the checks and optional parameters for the application start. Every added application is listed in the main program interface and has to be checked before the monitoring process starts.

Several options are available that can change some of the default parameters of the software. The default interval for application checks is set to 2 minutes which can be changed individually when a new application is added to the software program or in the options.

Application Monitor can be configured to check if the added applications are started during software startup. There is also an option to send error reports to an email address that can be configured in the software options.

The downside of using the application monitoring program is the rather high, and unusual, memory consumption.