jv16 powertools is an all in one program containing various tools and utilities for your computer. It contains a registry cleaner, file wiper, duplicate file finder and lots more.

The main reason I was trying it out was because the registry cleaner seems to be different from any I’ve ever tried in the past. Apparently it has “Stateful registry cleaning” which is different from most registry cleaners and you can read more on that on this page here.

The numerous other utilities may be useful at times but the interface can be a little confusing, so i wouldn’t recommend this software for those who aren’t too knowledgeable about the inner workings of their pc. But if you’re computer savvy and looking for an all in one solution to some common computer tasks,it’s definitely worth checking out, as long as you know what you’re doing.

Click here for the homepage with the full list of features and detailed info on each one.

One of the things that people that have used computers for a long time are aware of is how annoying it can be to retrieve passwords that you have lost. While many websites are now coming to their senses and using e-mail retrieval systems, at the same time many are not and therefore it can be difficult to figure out if the stuff behind the asterisks is actually the stuff that you want.

Well, not you can use this handy dandy piece of software to make sure that you can figure out exactly what is beyond the asterisks in a password field. It has an extremely easy to use interface and extremely easy instructions to go along with them. If you want to use it to find out what a set of asterisks really stands for, then you can click and drag the icon to the password and then release to find out what the password actually is. It will retrieve the password from any password field.

This is a handy piece of software because it allows you to figure out what something is, even after you’ve already forgotten. More information can be found on the publisher’s homepage.

When you think about it, part of making software for the computer should be in making tasks that people almost don’t even think about when they do them easier.   In other words, if you can take an everyday task that a person has to do and find a way for them to make that task easier, then you have really accomplished a great feat in your software design career.

Take the example of file browsing.  If you’re like most computer savvy users, what you are going to find is that you have a number of different CDs with a lot of data on each CD. Every CD that you’ve made that contains files from Microsoft office, programs, software and games are all going to be CDs that you might need to browse at some point to find a specific file. If you’ve got hundreds of CDs to look at, this can become a real problem in terms of loading and unloading a CD each time you want to look at its contents.

If you have the Offline CD Browser however, what you can do is make copies of your CDs and save images of their file contents within the program itself. Then, when you need to find a file, you can look through all of your CDs in moments because of the file structures having been saved on the hard drive. You can’t activate any of the files, but searching through them is a breeze.

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

If you’ve been using any version of Windows, then you will probably be familiar with the mechanism that Microsoft uses to distinguish true icon pieces from icon pieces that have been placed where they are as shortcuts to other icon pieces located elsewhere throughout the user’s hard drive. The mechanism for signifying the difference between a true icon and a shortcut is a small arrow that is put on overlay to the icon itself. This arrow is easily distinguishable and is used by Windows users to figure out which of their icons are shortcuts and which are not.

Of course, some users might want to remove this arrow for aesthetic purposes, simply because some people don’t like the look of it. While that’s been fine up until now, one of the vexing things about Windows Vista (one among many) is that there is no mechanism in place to actually remove that arrow. And because of the design scheme of Windows Vista, the arrow can actually be more annoying than in previous versions; especially to people that want it gone.

Well, if you want your arrows gone with minimal fuss, then take a look at the Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover 1.3. It is a program that allows you to either leave the shortcut arrows as they are, dull their effect and lighten their colour, or alternatively remove them altogether. It is a nifty little program to add to your hard drive and of course it is completely free to use.

More information available at http://www.frameworkx.com/frameworkx/content.aspx?ch=60&id=531

CSS is an acronym that stands for Cascading Style Sheet. It is one of the newer methods of coding available to web developers, but at the same time one that can save a lot of hassle in the sense of allowing you to make changes in one document that serve to affect the rest of your website. CSS has been a revolution because of its time saving properties and now that the use of it is widespread, what you are going to find is that the people interested in CSS are also the people that have come up with ways to make CSS integration and development even faster.

Meet the CSS Spy; an editor that allows you to take a look at and edit any CSS code you might already have. The innovative aspect to this handy little program is that you can actually view the changes that you make and their effects in real time in both internet explorer and firefox should you wish to do so. You can edit any sample you want with the CSS in this manner and of course it is compliant with all of the standards set out by the world wide web consortium; also known as the W3C. This can save you a lot of time because it means that you don’t have to continually save your file, upload it and then refresh your browser to view changes you might have made.

More information can be found at http://www.puntoequis.com.ar/aktive/default.aspx?SC=SOFT&ID=CSSSPY

Like most people, your computer probably has various programs you’ve installed on it over time. In my case, that’s quite a few indeed! If you are anything like how I am, You’ll know that it can become quite a time consuming task in itself just keeping all of these updated to the latest versions.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a program to instantly scan your computer and come back with a list of all your installed programs..and drivers!… listing the version you have on your computer and the current version available? Now wouldnt it be even greater if it had a link to download the latest versions in just a couple of clicks?

Well in short, thats exactly what VersionTracker Pro does. This seems to work pretty good for programs, but be wary with drivers as it doesn’t always show correct recommendations, at least not on my system anyway. You can download the one use trial at the website.

Check out the site for more details and prepare to save yourself a lot of time when updating your stuff in future!

If you’ve had issues with duplicate files in the past, taking up precious hard disk space, then Duplicate File Detector should come in handy in putting a stop to that. Duplicate File Detector is a powerful tool to search for file duplicates on your computer. The good thing about it is that it can find duplicates of any file: text, binary, music, video or images.

Criteria like filename, file size, or file content. For multimedia files (MP3, OGG/Vorbis, WMA), can be used to search for duplicates. The only problem I have with this software is that it is shareware, coughing up $29 for something would have been a great success as a freeware is something I can’t shake off.

But you check it out yourself, who knows it may be just what you need.  The trial version is free, go to http://www.al-soft.com/dfd/duplicate-file-finder.shtml to get it.

kruptos 2 is a powerful freeware application that enables you to encrypt your sensitive data. It uses 128 bit blowfish encryption to encrypt your files or folders which then can only be accessed with the correct password, so that only you can have access to them. You can even select to disguise the newly encrypted files name for further privacy.

One thing it could be used for is USB flash drives and portable storage devices, ensuring that no one can access your private or sensitive data if the drive is lost or stolen. It can also create self decrypting files and includes a file shredding utility.

Check it out at the website here.

The office scheduler can keep the record of your business activities in the most detailed manner. The program would remind you of all the tasks. It would prove to be good software to manage everything like the appointments, reminders with alarms, etc.

The software do takes a bit of time for downloading but it’s quick with installation. the screen appears with a table like format. The rows and columns show the time, the appointments, and the executives and the room information that you put. You can know about the programs set in different rooms for availability. The weekly schedule can be set so that you don’t miss out anything. You can have the course overview and set the yearly schedule. A bar above the table shows the option to choose the resources or appointment like options. You can set the date and also it also has the calendar tool to make the year month and date settings. You can create a new appointment for a date with the dialog box. Set the customer, resources, make the notes and set the alarm all with specific date and time. The appointments can be edited and the details can be seen, with free times. You can search for customer details and also know all the appointment set with them. Also you can create a duplicate appointment. You can delete the set detail anytime and get the print of it. Also you can insert a new MS Excel sheet. You can easily set the schedule properties and program preferences. You can actualize; show the overlaps and the basic design appointments. Bookmark can be set and the resources can be defined. You can refresh the program and export the data to excel sheet.

The help option provides all the information. The software is good to use as it helps managing the business function easily.

(More info and Download)

One of the things that you need to think about when it comes to maintaining your computer is the software that you are going to use to actually maintain your files. It is important because while a lot of people simply use the Windows Explorer software to do so, Windows Explorer can actually be resource intensive as well as break down at the same time that windows itself does. There are a lot of bugs in Windows Explorer that can make life difficult from time to time and that is why the need for third party software is needed; software like the free to use A43.

A43 is the freeware file manager that many people use instead of Windows Explorer, including all of the people that are lined up to say wonderful things about it. The one real bug it had, which was the cursor problem from version 2.51, has been completely fixed in version 2.52 and now there are really no downsides to using this program. The upsides are of course lack of resources needed to use it as well as no installer necessary.  It is simply a great piece of software and one that you should check out!

More information about it can be found here: http://www.primitus.us/a43/