Planestate is a pretty impressive freeware 3d screensaver for Windows.

It’s kinda hard to describe what it looks like without seeing it, but imagine endless partterns twisting and turning as they float through a starfield. If that’s hard for you to imagine… Here’s some screenshots because its better than me attempting to describe it!
It’s hard to appreciate how good this screensaver looks until you actually see it moving, so the screenshots don’t really do it justice .

It also claims to have very low cpu usage which is an added bonus. Theres no nag screens or anything like that, just a title that fades away after the first few seconds when it starts up. I’ve seen scrensavers that aren’t even as good as this that make you pay for them! So its worth checkin’ out if you want a pretty cool screensaver for your PC!

To see for yourself, grab the free download here.

This little program is a free add-on for the Windows Task Manager, for finding out about what’s running on your computer.

Firstly, let’s get to the Windows Task Manager, this can tell you whats running on your computer. To get to it right click the taskbar (or press control-alt-delete), click Task Manager, and then click Processes. There you’ll see a list of all the processes running on your computer. A lot of this stuff is useful and needed stuff, but sometimes it can be unneeded stuff. It can be stuff that isn’t necessary and is just slowing up your computer by running, or it can even be bad stuff such as spyware.

So how can you know what all those things listed actually are? Well this program adds a little “I” link beside each thing listed (standing for ‘Information’ i guess!). So now with a simple click, it opens up a webpage telling you exactly what each one means. So you can learn exactly what it does and if it’s needed or not. Handy little program that saves a lot of typing into Google!

Theres over 9000 entries in the processlibrary.com database of running tasks,and more added weekly. So you’re pretty sure to find out what you’ve got running.

Here’s a task manager tip while we’re on the subject: You can easily see which programs are using the most RAM on your PC by clicking the memory column header in task manager to arrange them by memory use.This free little add-on program just does one useful job really well!

For more info and to download it, go here!

When using registry cleaners, you really gotta be careful. It can be a little dangerous as they have the potential to delete things they shouldn’t, potentially really messing things up. Registry Booster is another registry cleaning program, but its not ju-u-u-ust another registry cleaning program! It seems to be a very safe one that knows what its doing! Unlike the vast majority of others!

It claims to be “the safest and most trusted solution to clean and optimize your system, free it from registry errors and fragmented entries through Advanced Error Detection Technology”. But I still recommend you create a system restore point before using software like this though! Just in case (better be safe then sorry)! As added protection, the program can also fully undo any changes it makes.

I have good faith in this program as it really saved my computer a few weeks ago when nothing else I tried would help at all (including some other popular registry cleaners). I was having some issues with my computer crashing just after start up and I tried a couple of different registry cleaners and this was the only one that totally fixed it. Everything was back to normal after i ran it. So now me and registry booster are pretty much the best of friends! If you check the homepage,you’ll see it received a bunch of awards, so i guess there might be something to it and i didn’t just get lucky!

Although someone else’s system may not react as positively as mine did. So make sure you know what you’re doin’ and do so at your own risk!

You can get more info here.

It’s pretty essential that every computer that’s connected to the internet has a firewall to protect it from hackers. Without this, it’s like having a house with all the doors and windows open.

“But why would anyone want to hack me?” i hear you say. Well these days hackers use tools that can scan hundreds of IP-addresses, just looking for the unprotected computers.The built in windows firewall, while being better than nothing, only offers one way protection. Malicious programs such as trojans or adware can still “call home”. and i’m pretty sure you don’t want them sending back your personal details or credit card number!

Zonealarm is a very well known firewall thats been around for many years now. While the paid versions include such extras as antivirus,antispyware and more, all necessary things these days, they still offer a free version of their basic firewall.

It’s pretty easy to have decent computer security on a low budget or even on no budget at all! In that case I recommend a free firewall such as this one, along with good free antispyware and antivirus programs that have a proven record in doing their job well (Some of which are mentioned in my previous reviews).

Go here to download zonealarm or to find out about what the paid versions offer.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could have just one program for talking to all your Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, AOL messenger and/or ICQ buddies with? Time to check out trillian!

Trillian allows all this, in a skinnable client that can be customized to be pretty cool (if you’re into that kinda thing). There’s some skins available from here and most skinning sites. If you wanna get a little more technical, you can even change things such as which emoticons to use (I have mine set up to use the default emotion sets of each. So that i see them just as if i was using the official messenger client, msn, yahoo, etc). It also supports plug-ins for various functions. Oh yeah, you’ll also never have to see those annoying little ads the official chat clients sometimes have running in them.

Its available in both free and pro versions, there’s not a lot of difference really except for video chat in pro and some advance features that you’ll rarely use.

It can be a bit confusing at first but you soon get used to it after a while. Its slightly more suitable for advanced users who like to customize their computers as much as possible and have everything matching their themes or color schemes. But for anyone who runs multiple chat clients and wants something a little slicker than the official ones (and all in one program) it’s still worth checking out.

Check out www.ceruleanstudios.com for more info.

At some stage, you’ve probably tried to view a video file and it hasn’t worked properly. Maybe you get sound and no picture, or maybe just nothing at all. One way to fix this is to download a codec pack, containing many different codecs for playing back the various video file formats.This can lead to more problems as there are are so many different codecs for different video formats and it can lead to things getting very messy on your computer with incompatibilities, codecs conflicting with each other, etc.

Sometimes even then, the file type you were trying to view still won’t work anyway! Wouldn’t it be great if there was a better way? Enter Ffdshow! Ffdshow is designed to work as an all in one “multi purpose codec”.

It’s a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing all the main video file formats including DivX, XviD, WMV, MPEG-1, and MPEG-2 and AVI movies (Translation for non-computer nerds: It makes your video files play properly). So simply put, if you are having trouble playing a video file, you should download and install this and then everything should play just fine!

If you don’t believe me, a quick search online will show a lot of people singing the praises of Ffdshow, (but if it still does work, don’t shoot the messenger! In that case i recommend you uninstall any codec packs you may have tried and then try this again). Get the free download of the latest version by going here.

Real Alternative will allow you to play RealMedia and other multimedia files without having to install RealPlayer or RealOne Player (or whatever its called this week!) from Real Networks. The offical real networks player has taken a bad rap in recent years for its in-player advertising methods. A quick search online will show that it has more than just a little bad press when it comes to that.

So if you wanna avoid all that, but still be sure your computer can play real networks content and certain audio or video files, its well worth checking this out instead of the official one. It seems to do the exact same job, minus the unwanted features (or in many peoples opinions, more like “adware” disguised as features). From my experience of using this, it seems to get the job done. It plays the required audio or video,including embedded content, painlessly and unobtrusively.

As an added bonus, it comes with Media Player Classic, a lightweight alternative to Windows Media player, that can play just about anything you throw at it!

You can grab it for free here

So maybe you’re sick of the same “boring blue” windows theme, day in-day out. Well before you throw your Windows out the window, check this out!
Windowblinds is one of those programs that once you start using it, you can never go back to the old way again.

It comes from the same people who brought us bootskin and logonstudio, so they know what they’re doin’. Basically you can change how your windows operating system looks, by simply downloading easy to install themes. There’s plenty of these available online in lots of styles on sites such as www.wincustomise.com and www.skinz.org, so you’re sure to find something to suit your tastes.

It doesn’t change how Windows works, but just how Windows looks. I’ve been using it for the last couple of years now and i found it doesn’t slow up the computer in the slightest. In fact i remember reading that it uses less resources than the windows default skin! Whether this still appies to the latest version, i’m not too sure, but it hasn’t slowed my computer up at all in any way. This new version, Windowblinds 5, now includes per-pixel alpha blending, allowing such effects as semi transparent menus and windows. You ‘re also able to change progress animations toolbar icons, and the hue and saturation of the windows interface.

This is a cool program if you wanna escape from boring blue default windows theme land . It’s safe and you can finally have a more individually styled computer (like this example). (more…)

Winamp is a very popular music player for windows. Chances are you’ve heard of it by now if you’re into using your computer to listen to music, so i’ll save the big introduction. I’m gonna share some (hopefully) useful tips from my experience of using it as my main music player.

Skins:
I’ve downloaded a lot of skins in the past in my neverending quest for the perfect skin.The novelty value soon wears off after a few minutes of use with most of these. So in the end i decided to settle on the default “modern” skin. I didn’t like the default color of it, but i found you can easily change this in options. This way you’re sure to have the most compatible skin (since it’s the default one as standard) but in a color more suited to your taste or desktop. If you’re on a slower computer, i recommend you stick with the “classic” skin as it uses a lot less resources. (more…)

Another free little program from the same people who bought you bootskin. This is a similiar thing, working in much the same way, but allows your to change your windows log-on screen. You can actually create and edit your own screen if you are feeling creative. If not, don’t worry! If you don’t feel up to the challenge of making your own there’s a lot of bootscreens available here .

Both bootskin and this program work great together for anyone who wants to add a more personalized touch to their computer, and who realises there is life past default blue color schemes and windows logos. : ) (more…)