If you’ve been connected to the Internet for any amount of time in your life, then you probably understand the need for some kind of protection for your machine. Even if you’ve never had experiences with viruses, chances are that you’ve had experiences with spyware that have resulted in a complete slowdown of the system resources that you have available to you. If you’ve been unlucky, then you’ve also encountered malware; stuff that can seriously harm your computer or any other computer that your computer might come into contact with (i.e . anything that is part of the same network).  It is very important that you find a good security mechanism for your computer, but doing so is very much easier said than done in today’s world.

However, the Dynamic Security Agent 1.0.6.27 is perhaps the best you are going to get for being a free piece of software.   According to the publisher, it is capable of providing zero hour protection from any type of spyware, malware or other type of intrusion that happens to be known to the software (i.e . in its database). Reviews of this one are very positive and suggest that it is a good piece of software to use if you are looking for good protection for free!

More info is available here.

One of the most annoying things to do when it comes to dealing with computers is figure out what to do with them when you want a specific part of the resources to be freed up for use elsewhere. For example, my copy of Windows Vista has options for shut downs, restarts, reboots, sleeps, standbys, locks and any other synonym you could possibly think of on those commands. Each one is useful, but when you are presented with an incoherent mass of commands, you are not going to be very sure of which one would be most appropriate for the situation that you are currently in.

Thankfully, this is where pieces of software like the Slawdog Smart Shutdown 1.4.1 Build 244 comes in. This software has by far the most comprehensive list of shut down options you are ever likely to see in your life. The Smart Shutdown 1.4.1 is simply a great piece of software technology because not only does it contain all of the commands that the Windows software itself normally has, but it also has sub-commands you can use if all you want to do is get your recycling bin emptied or your cache reset. There are so many things you can do with the Smart Shutdown such as setting periodic reminders that it would be a steal at any price; and you get it for free!
 
More information can be found at Slawdog.com.

With the recent boom of the internet, one thing that has become a whole lot popular is the concept of online chat. However, the concept of online chat has really evolved from what it used to be.  Chat used to be IRC and rooms on different internet sites with little more functionality than being able to type in something and then have that something appear in the chat room.  And while a lot of people enjoyed that and in the case of IRC still enjoy it, many others thirsted for more.

Well, MSN got things started and with MSN’s live chat feature allowing for the first time a lot of great video chatting features, what people eventually saw was that there was demand for such a thing.   And this is the demand that ooVoo fills with its presence.

One of the best things about this program is that it can actually support up to six users at the exact same time.   In addition to that, you can also send video files back and forth between ooVoo users and even send such files to people that don’t have the software installed!  It is simply an amazing piece of software and because of its free status, it is one that people have really embraced.

More information can be found at http://www.oovoo.com/

One of the most interesting aspects of the recent internet boom is the emergence of a number of different interactive websites. Collectively referred to as web 2.0, many of these websites require input and active effort from the people that are members of the sites and indeed it is that interactive element that really drives the interest that so many people have in websites like this.

At the core of the web 2.0 revolution is the concept of social networking. The social networking websites have really changed the way that people look at the internet nowadays and many people will tell you right off the bat that this is for the better. But what if you could have a piece of software that acted like a social website no matter what you were doing on the internet? Wouldn’t that be absolutely fantastic?

Well, take a look at the RatePoint Toolbar! It is a toolbar that allows you to actually rate every single website that you come across. Then, based on the ratings that you give, you are then connected to websites that the software thinks you will enjoy specifically because of the ratings that you give off. It is a very cool and nifty way of doing business and it can actually help you come across some very amazing websites that you would never have been able to find under different circumstances.

There is actually a version of the Toolbar available for internet explorer users as well and if you are interested in learning more you can head on over to the software’s homepage at http://web.ratepoint.com/tools

If you’ve ever used Windows before and you’ve had your computer for more than a couple of years, then chances are that you’ve gone through multiple versions of both Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. People that have done this know that it can sometimes be a real pain integrating everything together simply because of how annoying Windows can be at times. Office is of course made by the same parent company and sometimes making things backwards compatible tends to slip the minds of the developers at Microsoft, so you end up with some nasty surprises when you are trying to upgrade.

Programs like the Office Integrator 0.6 by Siginet Software are able to help you deal with at least some of these problems.  It is a program designed to be able to slipstream all of the different Service Packs as well as the Hotfixes needed for the particular version of Microsoft office that you might have.   It does this primarily through the use of an online database and it queries this database in order to determine whether your updates are slipstreamed and fix them if they aren’t. It is a very handy piece of software to have around and since it also happens to be free, it really is a catch!

More information about the Office Integrator can be found on their website sat http://siginetsoftware.com/ or on their forums at http://siginetsoftware.com/forum/

When it comes right down to it, executable files are a bit different from the other file formats you typically come across. Those are the files labelled with a .exe extension and are the ones that you click on to launch most of the different programs. Executable files are also important in that they help installation programs launch in a method that is easy and user friendly for most people, because having to manually decode and install a program yourself can be a real pain; especially if you aren’t really computer savvy.

One of the big problems with .exe files right from the start however has been the fact that it is difficult to pack them without either sacrificing the compression ratio or alternatively the quality of the .exe file. Decompression speed has also been a concern in the past and when a program such as UPX (Ultimate Packer for eXecutables) comes along that is able to deal with all three, you know that it is a rate program indeed.

UPX is free and portable and has the ability to achieve amazing compression ratio results for a wide range of different executable formats. It is an oldie but goodie in terms of the packing software market and now that it is free you can get your hands on this incredibly powerful tool quite easily.

More information is available at http://upx.sourceforge.net/

It’s not very often that a software program comes along that has the ability to really do something innovative, but that is exactly what the ASCII Generator dotNET Beta 0.8.2 has that ability.

Have you ever gone online to any of the web 2.0 websites and seen some of the very interesting text art? Or better yet, have you ever been part of an online RPG where the only method of communication was through text, forcing the people inside the game to become very innovative in the way they conveyed images?

If you’re like most people that use the internet, chances are that you have indeed some across such things. Whether it is something as simple as a smiley face ‘=)’ emoticon or something far more involved, the concept we are talking about here is known as ASCII art. It is basically art that imitates real life pictures through the use of nothing more than basic ASCII symbols.

And that is exactly what the generator allows you to do. You just upload a picture into the ASCII Generator dotNET and it converts that picture into some sort of high quality ASCII art. It is a fantastic program to use and since it is open source, you can effectively get your hands on it really easy.

For more information, head on over to Jonathan Matthews’ website at http://ascgendotnet.jmsoftware.co.uk/

Looking for an alternative browsing experience or just of the same old same old browsers you’ve been using? This is worth a try, it’s no top class browser but it does the job.

Slim Browser is a multiple-site browser based on tab-page interface. It includes a fully automatic form filler which allows you to fill in, save and manage Web forms easily. It provides convenient access to major search engines on toolbar.

If you are still in doubt about whether this is worth checking out or not, check out what it can do for you:

• Multiple site browser based on tab-page interface;
• Built-in RSS News Rendering Engine. Now you can read RSS news directly inside SlimBrowser without additional RSS Reader software;
• Convenient access to major search engines by Quick-Search Bar;
• Seamless integration of most Internet Explorer toolbars;
• ScriptPad: Built-in VBScript/Jscript/HTML/Text editor;
• Seamless integration with AI RoboForm FormFiller/Password Manager;
• Built-in Popup Killer based on intelligent identification and pre-defined filtering;
• Site windows killed by mistake are FULLY RECOVERABLE;
• Site Group: Open and save a collection of sites as a group;
• Flexible control of startup actions;
• URL Alias: Type short alias instead long URL.

And so much more!

Slim Browser runs on all 32-bit windows systems, i.e.,Win95/98/ME/NT/2k/XP/2003/Vista. A few minor features may not be available under Win95.

Want to check it out? Visit http://www.flashpeak.com/sbrowser

If you’ve had problems in the past removing sensitive data from your system, this should be a life saver. Eraser is an advanced security tool, which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.Eraser is Free software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License. So Why Is Eraser A Tool Worth Having? It’s a highly recommended resource all over the web.

We all have some data that they would rather not share with others – passwords, personal information, classified documents from work, financial records, self-written poems, the list can be continued forever.

If you think when you delete a file, the data is gone, you are kidding yourself. When you delete a file, the operating system does not really remove the file from the disk; it only removes the reference of the file from the file system table. The file remains on the disk until another file is created over it, and even after that, it might be possible to recover data by studying the magnetic fields on the disk platter surface.

Before the file is overwritten, anyone can easily retrieve it with a disk maintenance or an undelete utility.

This is where Eraser comes in, Eraser is designed with a simple user interface, you can safely and easily erase private data from your hard drive.

Go to http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ to check it out.

Ditto is a freeware clipboard extension. It runs as a taskbar icon and can be set to run at startup.

The idea is that it allows you to have a long list of all the things you have copied to the clipboard for later reuse, this is usually text but can also be images. An interesting feature is the ability to keep multiple computers clipboards in sync over a network, this data is also encrypted for security when sent over the network. 

The latest version is now portable too, so you can stick this on your flashdrive keyring for instant access from any computer.

This is a really useful extension for anyone who does a lot of copying and pasting. You can get it at the homepage here.