So you’ve bought your new laptop or monitor and everything is shiny new and fine and dandy, right?

Well maybe not, a certain percentage of new LCD screens contain whats known as dead pixels or stuck pixels. It’s an inevitable occurance in some monitors, as during manufacturing, it would cost too much to check and replace every monitor which has them.

This program allows you to check for any dead or stuck pixels. Dead pixels are pixels on the screen that don’t ” switch on” and a stuck pixel is one that is permanently stuck at one color., this program could be of use to you, but I cant help thinking of the old saying …”What you don’t know, won’t trouble you”… since it’s usually very hard to tell if you have this “problem” anyway. So if for whatever reason, you absolutely need to know, you can download it for free right here.

If not, even if your monitor is affected, it’s usually virtually unnoticeable anyway, so don’t worry, move on and forget you ever read this : )

There are always times in life when we need to have some of our important information stored. Whether you are talking about the school notes that you want to use for the test, the work notes that are top secret or the phone number of that girl you just got at the bar last night (wink), you need a place to store information that you want not only to be kept safe, but also to be kept secret. InfoCryptor refers to itself as being a multi-user secure information storage application and upon taking a closer look at what it actually has the ability to do, this turns out to be exactly the case at hand.

Whether you are looking to store text documents, notes, passwords, e-mails, security codes, diagnostics or anything else, you will find a way to store it with ease with InfoCryptor. The interface is very easy to use so that you don’t have to spend hours accessing the information that you want to keep safe. More impressive than anything else perhaps is how amazing the software itself actually is. InfoCryptor can be your friend and your assistant all bundled up in one and this ultimately is why it has become so popular amongst so many different people.

More info can be found at http://www.cynapse.co.in/infocryptor/index.php

In the latest updated version recently released, Cynapse InfoCryptor 1.50.1203, the Major change is the fixed component update URL.

Many people absolutely hate the idea of having to use a paper dictionary and thesaurus.  First of all, you’d have to shuffle through both of them separately and that could waste a lot of time, but also flipping through a bunch of pages looking for one specific word is a time consuming process that could make you less productive in the future.

The solution?  Take the dictionary and thesaurus to the electronic realm!  And that’s exactly what’s been done here with TheSage’s English Dictionary and Thesaurus.  It is a multifaceted software program with a complete dictionary and thesaurus of the English language.  What’s even better is that it runs locally on your computer so you don’t even have to be connected to the Internet in order to use it.

You can not only search thousands of different entries with just one convenient search bar, but you can actually use wildcards and anagrams in your search; not to mention that the software itself keeps a history of searches for you to refer back to at a later date. You can even go ahead and customize the look of the dictionary program to make it look exactly how you want.  It’s simply fantastic!
 
More information can be found at http://www.sequencepublishing.com/thesage.html
 

KoolIM is a site that allows you instant access to your instant messengers. There’s no extra software to download or anything, you just go to the KoolIM website. It’s perfect for when you’re at an internet cafe computer that doesn’t have your usual IM client installed, or maybe you’re just a neat freak and you don’t really wanna bother installing several IM clients to clutter up your pc.

You can easily sign on to AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, and ICQ using your existing screen names and passwords. So if you use different computers a lot and just want to use the regular basic features of instant messaging, its worth checking out.

Go here and see for yourself. It even works from behind firewalls or proxy servers!

Scribd is a very interesting site for anyone who likes to read a lot! So if you are the type of person who spends a lot of time at the library or reading stuff at magazine racks without actually buying anything, this site is something you’ll love spending time at!

Scribd enables anyone to upload any kind of document for easy online browsing by visitors to the Scribd site. Multiple document formats are supported. There’s a lot of interesting and random documents to be viewed ranging from photos, ebooks, classic books, serious stuff, humorous stuff and random things of almost any subject you can think of. The site also has several different language versions.

The simplest way to describe it is that it’s like the YouTube of documents. Check it out for yourself, but be warned, you could be there for quite a while once you get stuck into something!

“Computerize Your Assets” is home inventory software for making a list of everything you have in your home. Everyone hopes it won’t happen to them, but his could be very useful in an unfortunate event of fire, theft or natural disasters like flooding etc.

It can be useful to show police or insurance companies in such situations, also it’s hard to memorize absolutely everything you own anyway! Especially regarding brand, model, serial number and cost. It has a lot of useful features such as unlimited categories,items and locations, encryption, graphs, picture and video support, and much more than I can list right here.

If this sounds like it could save you from a lot of trouble someday for whatever reasons such as your home location, local water levels or weather patterns , etc, Its definitely worth checking out at the site here for much more info.

The latest updated version of this cool software is out- SIW 1.69 Build 632. If you don’t know about SIW before let me let you in on the gist:

SIW is a Read-Only / Display-Only System Information tool that gathers detailed information about your system properties and settings.

It is a utility that includes detailed specs for Motherboard, BIOS, CPU, Devices, Memory, Video, Drivers, Ports, and Printers. SIW also displays information about Operating System, Installed Programs, Processes, Services, Serial Numbers, Users, Open Files, System uptime, Users, Network, Network Shares, etc.

With this software you also get real-time monitors for CPU, Memory, Page File usage and network traffic. It also displays currently active network connections, Passwords hidden behind asterisks, installed codecs, and more.

Think it’s worth checking out? Well It’s FREEEEE so it won’t cost you anything but rather give you a lot.

Go check it out at http://www.gtopala.com/index.html

For users of Windows 2000 and Windows XP, here is good tool for you, It is called XP SysPad.

XP SysPad is a launcher which makes access to Windows system utilities its specialty. The cool thing about this software is that it allows you to launch all of the prime Windows system info and utilities like the individual control panel applets with the click of a button, making things so easy.  So instead of navigating around the explorer pane or waiting for menus to open up, this tool makes it real easy for you to access your windows utilities.

You can also recover your Windows 2000/XP product key, get your IP address, execute web queries, monitor any running system process, launch any program,search files, and more. It launches over 200 functions in all.

Here are a couple of the great features you’ll get to enjoy with this software

Just some of the 200+ features of XP Syspad:

• Disk Partition Manager
• DDE Share
• Removable Storage Operator
• Windows Explorer
• System Memory Stats
• Find Files + Folders
• EmptyRecycle Bin
• Windows Sound panel
• Regedit
• Temp file sweeper
• Printers
• Multimedia Settings
• Java Plug-In Control Panel
• Capture Screenshot
• Windows Sound Recorder
• Command Shell
• Windows Help
• Open Windows Folder
• Open Windows System Folder
• Windows Scanner and Camera Wizard
• Program Manager
• Add Network Place Wizard
• Sql Client Config Utility

For a more detailed list of features CLICK HERE!! Want to give it a shot? Why not it won’t cost you a dime, it’s free!!!

The Sans Internet Storm Centre has warned of an email scam that lures users with the promise of a free iPhone.

One e-mail claims you have ‘won a new iPhone’. Clicking on the link however brings you to a page that attempts to exploit a number of well known Internet Explorer vulnerabilities and then downloads a malicious executable ‘sys—-.exe’. This executable installs itself as a service and upon review appears to be a spam bot.  Anti virus coverage was very spotty this morning but has improved during the day. 

Another scam aims to convince readers they need to go and buy an iPhone on what appears to be an Apple site (faked using a browser helper object). Naturally the site does not belong to Apple and you end up paying someone in Latvia. Sunbelt has a great writeup on this here. Thanks to roseman for the link.

(via Sans Internet Storm Centre)

PIM XP 1.21 is an excellent time management tool that can be efficiently used to plan your business and personal details. It aids in maintaining the address book, schedule tasks and make note for personal functioning.

PIM XP also has the utility of a blog wherein you can note down your ideas and even publish it as a blog. This software can be a very imperative tool for people who are very active with lots of ideas. PIM XP helps the user with the total control over all his tasks, projects and contacts. It provides an all-in-one solution as the user can perform tasks, contact address book and at the same time publish or maintain his blog.

PIM XP can be an excellent time saving tool as it will cut down your tasks by helping you to plan your tasks, schedule your personal affairs and appointments and can also remind all your tasks in time.

(More info and download)