Chances are, you have at least a couple of USB devices connected to your computer at times. It’s a given nowadays to have flash drives, portable hard discs, printers,MP3 players, and other devices regularly connecting through USB ports; So chances are,you’ve likely got rather a few by now. Would you like to know how many, and be able to keep track of what they’re doing?

USBDeview is a program for maintaining a watch over everything USB on your computer. It doesn’t just report on USB devices currently attached — device name, type of device, connection status — it also keeps a database of things previously connected too. Do you want to uninstall a device? This program can help you out. How about disconnecting something currently connected? It can help you do that too. You’ll even be able to keep track of USB devices connected to a remote machine too! assuming you’re logged-on as an Administrator.

What’s more, its freeware, so if you wanna take it for a test ride and you enjoy it, it’s yours to keep.

Visit the homepage here

Adobe Reader is the regular program for looking at PDF files. In fact, the PDF file format was created by Adobe. The problem with Adobe Reader is that its a large program for what it performs. It also has a high memory use, along with very sluggish start up, there’s also unnecessary and complicated features.

Luckily, alternatives exist.

Foxit PDF Reader, also a free reader, is the most long-familiar contender to Adobe Reader. Now here we have another better and lighter reader, Sumatra PDF. Another attraction is that it’s open source.

Sumatra PDF is a stripped-down application, with very few buttons, only: open, back, forward, zoom in, and zoom out. You can also choose to alter the view (zoom, page layout etc.) in the toolbar. Viewing the same document as the other two, Sumatra consumes just 7MB of memory, and opens nearly instantly.

The Sumatra PDF installation file weighs in at under 1MB, in comparison to Foxit’s under 2 MB, and Adobe Reader’s oversized 20MB.

The program takes up less than 1mb of space after its installation (only one .exe and an uninstaller). Also, registry entries are not needed, so it has portability too. Worth trying out if you are sick of waiting on Adobe Reader to finally open and like small, lightweight yet useful software.

Check it out here

DiskDigger is a file recovery program that goes “beneath the file system” to recover data on a sector-by-sector basis from hard drives, thumb drives, etc. This program is very simple to use. Choose a drive, decide the types of files to be recovered (jpeg, mp3, documents, etc.) and select next.

One thing is that if the filetype you’re attempting to recover isn’t in the DiskDigger’s list, it can’t find it. It would be nice to have a wildcard option or the ability to specify more filetypes. Even so, the most popular filetypes are there and that should be sufficient for most users.

It can scan FAT12 (floppy disks), FAT16 (older memory cards), FAT32 (newer memory cards and hard disks), NTFS (newer hard disks), and exFAT (Microsoft’s new successor to FAT32). It’s also portable as the whole program runs from a self contained *.exe file.

So here’s the deal: DiskDigger is a freeware, simple-to-use data recovery program that works almost as good as similar pay software.

For further info or to download it and try to get those missing files back, head over to the website here.

A tool for find and replace across multiple text files. Supports regular expressions and provides an expression tester, batch processing and library facility. It also features an interactive file list and highlighted search results.

Features: A tool for work with text files. TextCrawler enables you to instantly find and replace words and phrases across multiple files and folders. It utilizes a Regular Expression engine that helps you create sophisticated searches, perform batch operations, extract text from files etc. Varied search parameters could be used.

To make sure the regular expressions specified are workable, the program provides a regular expression tester. Save the regular expressions that work in a library for future use. You can save the search & replace scripts too. Search results are highlighted by the program. Multiple operations can be batched to operate on a file. Search and replace results can be exported to another program.

The extract feature lets you mine of specific information from a set of files. For example you can specify a regular expression to define an e-mail address and extract these addresses. The results are displayed on a separate window and can be saved. You can specify a set of files starting with a “start location”. There are couple of viewing modes. In one all the files that were searched are listed. In the second mode all files searched are displayed in preview window at the same time. The interface is simple and quite intuitive. It is easy to use.

Overall: Simple to use text processing application and is quite powerful.

{More Info and Download}

In these days of computers being everywhere, it’s almost essential to have decent typing skills. In reality, there is still many people who get by with the ” 2 finger” method. In reality, it is as easy to learn how to type properly as it is to learn how to type that way.

Stamina Typing Tutor is a free program that will help you to learn how to type correctly, or to improve your current typing skills. Its equally useful for the beginner as well as the more advanced typer. It supports multiple languages and keyboard layouts ( QWERTY.AVERTY.Dvorak,etc). It also offers an alternative typing method which they claim reduces hand stress.

The main screen has a clear and easy to understand layout with WPM (words per minute) and various graphs and statistics about your progression.

I’d recommend this to anyone wanting to learn how to type correctly or improve their current skills.
It runs on any Windows computer and its free!

Check it out here.

WeFi is an application that enables you to find WiFi spots around you.

But apart from letting you find nearby open WiFi hotspots (or add your own), it has some more interesting features. These include being able to find other nearby WeFi users, which you can then communicate with, or add your friends who are also using WeFi and it will alert you when your friend is nearby and show their location and vice versa, alerting them about you too.

It also has Facebook and Twitter integration.

The WeFi hotspot directory helps you get a wireless network to connect to any place worldwide. It’s available for Windows, Mac, and also Windows Mobile.

For a more comprehensive list of features and to download it free. Check out http://www.wefi.com/

BurnAware will show you that CD/DVD burning can be easy and enjoyable. Use it for free and get access to a full range of major burning operations without obligations – no ads, no limitations, no spyware – wrapped into an attractive modern package.

Features: BurnAware Free Edition is essentially a disc burner. It can burn all CD/DVD media types including the Blu-ray media. You can create data, bootable and multisession CD/DVD/Blu-ray discs. Creating DVD video is part of the agenda of course. But there are various other things this application can do otherwise. Creating a boot disc image, creating and recording just disc images are part of the functionalities. It can create audio CDs and MP3 collections on CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs. The writing is on the fly for all image copying, no staging required. Written files are verified automatically.

UDF/ISO9660 and Joliet Bridged file systems or any combination of those can be handled. The burner is able to operate through a range of hardware interfaces that include IDE/ SCSI/ USB/ 1394/ SATA. CD-text and Unicode characters are supported. It can work in Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7 (32 and 64 Bit) environments.

Overall: The interface is nice and clean. Options are grouped together quite well. You can choose image burning, multimedia burning that include creating MP3 discs, utility tasks such a erasing a disc and so on. Integrated with explorer like interface when picking the files for burning.

{More info and download}

W.O.T ( Web Of Trust) is a free add-on for Firefox. Its purpose is to let you know if you come across hyperlinks in your search results or webmail which may lead to potentially dangerous sites. These sites could install spyware/malware/adware/viruses or contain browser exploits, phishing attacks or fraudulent activities.

It works by adding a color coded “traffic light” next to hyperlinks, green indicates the link is safe, yellow warns you to be cautious, and red alerts you of potential dangers. It also provides an optional child safety rating.

W.O.T gets data from hundreds of sources, such as listings of fraudulent sites, as well as allowing user comments about sites.

It currently has almost 3 million users and ratings for over 20 million sites, so if you’re concerned with surfing online safely, it’s well worth checking out.

More info at the homepage here.

Here’s a really simple to use audio player that’s kinda similar to Winamp in appearance. It’s based on Coolplayer, a well known freeware player thats been around quite a while. This is basically a portable version.

It has very good audio quality and includes the kind of features you require from a music playing program, like play-lists, skin support, randomizer and so forth. You just drag your audio files onto the play-list area and it instantly begins playing.

It supports streaming audio, ideal for listening to your favorite internet radio stations. It has an equaliser and support for winamp plug ins.

An easy program, not burdened down with superfluous features, yet adequate for most people requiring a nice audio player. Just copy it to your memory stick and you’re free to enjoy music from any computer you find yourself at, all without having to mess with other peoples programs or settings. Just don’t forget your earphones!

Check out the homepage here for this free download.

A Panic Button or Boss Key is a feature of some software for hiding some obvious open windows on your desktop when you press it. This usually works by minimizing or otherwise “hiding” open windows instantly when the key is pressed.

“Dad’s Around” is one such utility. The software package is supplied in 7z format which means that an unzipper supporting this format is required. (Visit http://www.7-zip.org/)

The program itself is fully portable and can be ran from anywhere on your computer with no installing needed.

It offers up to four options that will be activated with the hotkey (Windows Z but you can change this). The choices can be selected or deselected with a right click on the system tray icon when the program is running. The options are to mute WAVE audio, kill the actual foreground process, minimize all windows and/or show a black screen. Each option can be activated or deactivated on an individual basis.

This utility uses around 5 MBs of memory while running. A useful little utility if you are a paranoid type for reasons best known to yourself!

Visit the homepage here