If you’ve tried different email notifiers but not really found the thing for you, you might want to give this a shot. It’s called Poppy.

Poppy is a small e-mail notification utility that can check multiple POP3 accounts for new mail. It will display an icon in the taskbar notification area and this icon will change whenever new mail is waiting. The cool thing about this freeware is that it can also optionally play a sound or display a small popup window.

It’s worth checking out and it’s free so no financial commitment needed to enjoy its features.

Here is the place to be for more info and free download.

Ever tried WordPipe? This tool takes all the hard work out of replacing text across multiple Microsoft Word documents. All you have to do is just run WordPipe across your file server or website to fix all affected documents in one hit, yeah it’s that simple.

The new version which has just been recently released by Crystal Software, these latest changes have been effected:

• Now allows blank ‘Highlight’ field on Excel import, and also displays any import errors 
• New option to allow highlighted text to be removed 
• Replace inside field codes now checks if the document has field codes displayed first, and also restores the document’s original settings on save – Added missing ‘Highlight’ column header to .tab export
• If Prompting is on and the Replacement text is changed, now accepts the change
• Status tab switches to main (first) tab if there is a warning about backup files not being removed or restored

The only hitch with this software is that it’s off the roof in the pricing zone, my way of saying too expensive, but that’s my own opinion, go try it out, it  may just be what you need, or at least you may get enjoy the trial version for free.

Want to see if it’s what you need? Visit http://www.crystalsoftware.com.au/wordpipe.html

Are you an artist who has so far avoided computer art due to feeling more comfortable with traditional artist medium such as pencil, paints, etc?

Before you turn your back on digital art methods, you might wanna check out TwistedBrush. It has one of the most realistic brush engines you are likely to find in any art program. It lets you choose from a wide selection of brush and paint types with very realistic results that come as close to real life paint and canvas as possible. It comes with lots of brushes (12 in the free version and a huge 3000 in the paid version). It also has drawing tablet support.

This will definitely be of interest to any traditional artists thinking about moving into the digital world, all with less mess and lots of features you can only get with technology! Check it out here for the full list of features and some examples

The newest version of this excellent piece of software was just released on November 18th and there are a number of new things included within the software package guaranteed to delight previous users. A lot of improvements have been made to things like the groups features and these improvements go a long way towards cutting down on redundancies and ultimately making sure that the whole software runs more smoothly.

If you are new to this program, then the Free Download Manager can definitely make your life a lot easier. It is a program that you can download for free and use to download files from any website you want. You can actually use it to download whole websites as well and you can also order your downloads so that you can find out with just a simple window maximization what the status of every file you are currently downloading is.   All in all, it tracks fantastically and since it is full featured freeware as well, a lot of people have benefited greatly from its use.

More information about this software as well as download links are available at the homepage of the creator at http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/.

Money Manager Ex for Windows is perhaps the most popular personal finance software currently available on the market. Its full featured ability to allow you to keep track of your personal finance in staggering amounts of detail combined with the fact that it is open source and therefore configurable by people who know programming to be the perfect piece of software for them have catapulted the Money Manager Ex to the status of being one of the most popular pieces of software around as far as money managing tends to go.

This is the latest version of the software, released by TheZeal Software on November 19, 2007. In this latest version a number of changes have been made. A lot of transactions previously (such as changing the payee information for a split transaction) had resulted in faulty data and results, but a lot of those have been fixed. This was the biggest drawback of the software and the fact that it has been fixed and is no longer a problem is definitely a profound fact to realize. Different support for different currencies and the elimination of bad data when currencies were changed has also been addressed and fixed in this version in addition to a number of other things.

For more information on this piece of software, you can visit the website directly at http://www.thezeal.com/software/index.php?Money_Manager_Ex

The thing with software these days is that it has to be updated every now and then, keeping up to date with recent improvement and versions can be tiresome, but that should be a thing of the past with UpdateStar.

UpdateStar lets you stay up-to-date with all of your personal software you are using on your computer. This way you make sure to always use the most up-to-date software, maximizing your every-day user experience. The good thing about this software is that it covers all of your freeware, shareware, demos, commercial software, and includes special offers.

Latest changes in the newly released version include:

• Keeps software bang up-to-date
• Provides information on an entire software setup
• Improved and simplified software management
• Protects against outdated software
• Updates can be individually controlled
• User-maintained software database

Want to give it a shot? Go to http://www.updatestar.com/

If you want Microsoft’s answer to the iTunes platform, then you only have to look as far as the Microsoft Zune platform. This absolutely blows iTunes out of the water when you consider the organization features that it has as well as a number of the different abilities it has to allow you to store and transfer files. You can label files, create playlists and do a number of different things with Microsoft Zune 2.1 that you can not do with iTunes or alternatively that would take you a lot longer to do with iTunes. MS Zune is also freeware and therefore quite easy to download and set up.

2.1 is the latest version of MS Zune and it was released on November 19th. It is a piece of software that has been growing its fan base through each successive version being released and this version promises more of the same that fans have come to expect from the teams constantly working to correct any bugs and errors that might crop up in Microsoft Zune 2.1. This version primarily addresses issues of ergonomics and appearance and does a lot to streamline the code involved in the software and in doing so make the software run a lot faster. This will be welcome news to fans of Microsoft Zune 2.1 as any faster speed is usually good news!

For more information about Microsoft Zune 2.1, you can visit its website directly at http://www.zune.net/en-us/products/zunesoftware.

This is worth checking out- SPAMfighter Exchange Server Module (SEM).

SPAMfighter Exchange Server Module (SEM) is the easy to use Exchange server module for small and medium businesses.

What’s the big deal with this application?

• The fact that it is powered by the SPAMfighter Server, which is updated by the SPAMfighter community of more than 400,000 users from 160 countries gives it a special edge.
• The fact that it also delivers instant spam protection with no configuration or maintenance to help the small and medium businesses that often operate with little to no IT staff is an added advantage.
• Its seamless integration with Microsoft Exchange Server which makes the solution very fast is priceless.

In the latest version just recently released, these changes were effected:

• New features added
• Better support for Outlook Web Access Toolbar
• Improved statistical reporting
• Small bug fixes

Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? For more info and download, go to http://www.spamfighter.com/product_sem.asp?

If you’ve been searching for a good multi-function time and date calculator but the ones you have been coming across just don’t cut it, then this might be just the thing for you, it’s called TimeCalcPro.

So what does TimeCalcPro do?

TimeCalcPro is a multi-function time and date calculator. Its features include addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of units of time. That’s not all, it adds and subtracts AM/PM times, finds the difference between dates and times, lets you add and subtract from a starting date, and has a spreadsheet for calculating timecard totals and overtime.

What I love about this cool tool is that its five calculator interfaces are simple to use, and offer many options. For example, you can choose to receive answers in days, hours, minutes, seconds or any combination that you desire.

The only hitch with this software is the price, shelling out $30 for a multi-function time and date calculator doesn’t seem like my idea of a great deal but I guess it all depends on how badly you need it and the trial version is available for those of us who are not willing to cough up the dough.

Want to see if it will work for you? Go to http://www.spudcity.com/timecalcpro/

I’ve always loved simple tools, to have a tool doing one thing and doing it well is one thing I really love. That is why I like Am I Online!?

Am I Online!? is a simple piece of software that will alert you when you lose Internet access and most importantly will also alert you when the connection comes back online. This way you will not have to constantly try to access a web page, or keep an eye in a “ping” window. It will alert you instantly with a message box and a sound when your connection comes back online.

Want to try out this simple tool? I know you may be thinking, doesn’t windows do that on its own, tell you when you online or not? Well the truth is, this does it faster and it’s sort of cooler.

The only thing I have against this tool though is that it would have had much success as a freeware getting donations than as the shareware it currently is, don’t know many people who will pay $10 for something they can get for free elsewhere.

But all in all the final decision , to buy or not to buy is up to you, go try it out the free edition first.

Go to http://www.easytousetools.com/am_i_online