For many a reason one may want to block specific web sites. The site may be a known malware site, a known phishing site, could be a porno site you want to block from viewing by children and so on. This utility helps you do that by letting you edit and thereby add or delete or correct mistakes in the Windows Hosts file. Hosts file is the file looked up during access to various websites and if there is an entry blocking the URL then none of the browsers used in your system will access the URL. You are able to change, backup / restore settings easily. Block website using entries to hosts file, due to which all browsers will not allow navigation to the blocked website.

The interface is simple. It shows the current content of the Hosts file. The interface has controls “add new entry”, “comment selected”, “Un-comment selected” and “save changes”. The way this would work is when you click on the new entry there’s a pop up that take the URL as well as the IP address of the host to be blocked. If for some reason you want to permit access to an existing blocked entry, simply comment it out. This is actually a temporary change. If need be one just has to un-comment the entry to introduce the ban again.

Overall: Easy to use simple utility meant for a specific task.

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Advanced Windows Optimizer is a collection of tools to optimize and speedup your system performance. It contains utilities to clean registry, temporary files on your disks, erase your application and internet browser history.

Features: Advanced Windows Optimizer is a set of tools that help keep Windows running optimally. The interface represents the arrangement of tools available. On the left there’s a list of major group of functions and as each is selected the interface area on the right shows the tools available in that group. For example the main groups are system cleaners, system optimizers, system control, system tools, registry tools and file tools. System cleaner group contains Disk cleaner, registry cleaner, history cleaner and task scheduler. Disk cleaner cleans up all junk files. Registry cleaner clears off all invalid entries and references from the registry. It is safer to create a back up of the registry first, just in case something goes wrong.

System optimizer group contains duplicate files finder, shortcut fixers and memory optimizer. Duplicate files finder finds and removes un-needed files. Short cut finder finds all the un-connected shortcuts. Memory optimizer optimizes the memory management functions. System control group has system control, BHO remover, startup cleaner and auto shutdown features. System control helps organize & manage system settings. BHO remover helps get rid of un needed browser help objects. Startup cleaner helps clean up the list of start up programs. Auto shutdown helps specify auto shutdown times. System tools group has a process manager, uninstall manager, system information and Windows tools. Process manager and the uninstaller are obvious functions, the Windows Tools is a place where you can startup most important system tools built into Windows. The Registry Editor, Disk Defragmenter or DirectX Diagnostic Tool are just some of them.

Overall: AWO is a fast, small and easy to use power collection of tools that you may need every day. The set of tools is quite extensive, may be you can add a couple of more tools but this set is quite powerful and works well.

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Wondershare PPT to YouTube is a professional PowerPoint to YouTube video converter. It can convert PowerPoint presentations to YouTube MP4, WMV video formats with all the elements in the original PowerPoint retained.

Features: Wondershare PPT to YouTube converts PowerPoint slideshows into video. This is necessary as YouTube accepts only WMV or MP4 formats. PowerPoint is the most popular format for creating presentations contents. YouTube is one of the best ways to share contents with others. This application marries to two so that promotional material created in PowerPoint presentations can be widely distributed. It thus becomes convenient and easy to create video slideshow with PowerPoint and this converter. Distribute through YouTube your creation to the wide open world audience. Business promotion via the YouTube is now enabled through this package. It is likely to yield better results than direct e-mail campaigns.

While converting the slideshows to the WMV or MP4 videos you can retain animations, transitions, sounds and movie clips. The application has batch processing facilities enabling conversion of many files at a time, up to 12 PowerPoint files can be converted in a batch. For converting a slide show import the file into the application. Set the output format you want and then start the process by clicking on the convert button. Convert to MPEG4 DivX or Xvid formats, 640×480 resolution, MP3 audio and 30 FPS for best results. Resulting video should be less than 10 minutes in duration. MP4 video can work with Smartphones and other handheld devices. WMV works with Zune portable media player.

Overall: Nice and easy converter for uploading on YouTube a comprehensive audience.

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WinUtilities Disk Cleaner securely clears obsolete/junk files, duplicate files and broken shortcuts from your computer. By clearing out these unwanted files WinUtilities Disk Cleaner can help you utilize your amount of available hard drive space.

Features: WinUtilities Disk Cleaner lets you free up space in the hard disk by cleaning up unnecessary junk. The junk that is both unnecessary and unwanted. More free space on the disk ensures better performance of your system. Many a Windows applications create quite a few temporary files. When closed they should clean up these temp files. But they pile quite often because some applications do not do this clean up well. A program error that cause unnatural termination of the program, badly designed application and may the shut down was not proper. When installing many applications add folders as well as shortcuts to the desktop and start menu.

One of the reasons these files may get overlooked is they are no real problems most often until a sizeable volume builds up. Most of these residue files are small by themselves. However thy can pile up to a substantial amount quite quickly. With WinUtilities Disk Cleaner you can safely, easily and effectively remove these unwanted and unnecessary files from you computer. The utility also has other tools that help you easily & securely delete these files. Clearing up such unnecessary muck out of the hard disk periodically helps improve performance. The program works with Windows 95, NT4, 98, Me, 2000, XP, 2003 Server and Vista.

Overall: Nice enough utility when you are substantially full in the hard disk. But that may be difficult in these days of monster hard disks with capacities in 500 GB to 1 TB of storage. It’d take a lot of time to do a scan of such huge disks too.

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Advanced Audio Recorder can record any sound passing through any line of your sound card. For example, you can record sound being played back by an external program, sound from a microphone, an external LP, cassette, CD/DVD player, AM/FM. etc.

Pros: Advanced Audio Recorder records any audio passing through the sound card of the system. That includes not only the line-in inputs such microphone or external CD player/music system but any program/games on the computer that plays audio through the sound card. So if you have a stack of vinyl records, old/new CDs that needs to be ripped or a DVD movie whose soundtrack you absolutely love. Cassettes or whatever that needs to be converted to MP3 or some other digital format is fodder for this program.

WAV, MP3, OGG or WMA are the formats it can handle easily. Recording is always with the CD quality default. Settings are available for changing sampling frequency and sample size in bits to have a more compressed file size if you need to. Obviously the quality would not be as good. Automatic start, stop, pause and restart are possible. You are able to set up hot key based controls and schedule recording that can be stopped automatically and the machine shut down. This enables completely un attended sessions. Cut, copy, paste and trim are the editing features that you can use to get a finished product you want. Audio waveform displays help you do these easily visually. High pass. Low pass and notch filtering can help you clean up any noise in the track. Overall the user interface is simple and easy to use too. A built in CD burner lets you create music discs with your own selection of music.

Cons: One should be aware of the copyright issue. One needs to understand that creating copies for own use from material that (CD etc) that you already own is the only situation that is legal.

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We are usually game for online videos and movies, and often wish to download these on our PCs, but due to non availability of an appropriate tool, we usually couldn’t fulfill this wish. However, you can easily get this easily with the help of MovieSaver 2.0. It is an easy to use tool that helps the users in downloading their favorite videos from different video websites. The program supports downloading videos from the sites like YouTube, MySpace, MyVideo, GoogleVideo, Metacafe, Yahoo! Video, etc. The interface of the program is modestly designed, and the video downloading process. In order to start downloading process, you just need to enter the video link, and after the proper analysis of the website, the program would kick off the process. The program is compatible to the flash videos, but it does not require flash player application for the reproduction process.

By using the MovieSaver 2.0 application it becomes an easy task for you to download the videos from various websites. It’s a small utility which helps you get effective output results. Whenever you want to get the videos downloaded, you just need to copy-paste, or drag or drop the video URL into the program. You’re provided with the ‘Video URL’ option, where you need to enter the link for the video. When you have entered the URL, click on ‘Download’ icon shown on the screen, and the program would start analyzing the URL. Finishing the analyzing process, the program starts the downloading the video. The progress level relating to video downloading is shown below the ‘Download’ option to help you know when the video is saved on your system. While processing the mentioned URL, the program enlists the unknown URLs at the bottom side of its interface. To reduce your work, the application provides the drop down list of video websites, thus making them easily accessible. You just need to open the website, watch the videos and get the desired video downloaded.

The MovieSaver 2.0 application utilizes a simple process to download videos and store them to the desired location.

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If you have lots of images on your computer but are bored of watching them in the same style then there are chances that you would be looking for a change. To change the look of the pictures and make them look brand new all you need to do is get hold of Decoration 1.0. With its filter option you can select and make the changes to the images as you desire. Make changes to the color border, round corners, gradient frame and apply different effects to the images like drop shadow, mosaic, blur, mirror, tint, etc. You can even perform the functions like rotate, crop, zoom and so on, and adding watermarks to the images. It is even helpful in generating buttons for your website.

The Decoration 1.0 is uncomplicated in usage and does not require any special skill to make the required selections. Easily Load the files from your system or Webpage and you can load multiple files as the software supports batch processing also. You’re also provided with the preview option that makes it easy for you to confirm the selection of the images. Make the selection of the set of filters or create a new set and save it for further use. Make the selections of the changes that you want to be applied to the images like to change the brightness, gamma, glow, and have the image sharpen or use any other one. You can even have the filter parameters changed to suit your requirement like level of color, effect, etc. You can even have the image overwrite or save the output image with another name and select the level of quality for the image. In the same way you can have the button icons changed and edited.

Decoration 1.0 supports batch processing and its simple user interface is good for novice users to work with. It provides various effects that user can play with to modify their images and have fun.

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When you have the habit of listening to the same song again and again sometimes you might have thought of remixing them so that you can listen to them with a different feel. Or else if you like singing and want to make a record of the songs sung by you, you can try Easy audio mixer 1.0 Easy audio mixer 1.0 that can helps you to edit the audio files and even have the new files recorded. It is equipped with options to help you apply effects and even have the audio channels edited. The program supports saving the resulting files into WAV or WMA files that are compatible to be played anywhere. It is even more magical as you can replace your voice with the singers while maintaining the song music.

Easy audio mixer 1.0 program is integrated with features presenting a user-friendly interface. The software comprises of different features to perform the editing work on the audio files. Import the wav, mp3, or wma files into the program to start the editing and then create spellbinding music files. You can even have the files played with the Playback Controls to confirm of the selection of the right one. When you open the files, you get the Music and voice sections where you can make the changes. With it you can change the different features like to change Channel, Mute it and even enable solo channels only. You can add the music files easily and even you can easily change the FX settings. Have the Voice removed with the help of the voice removal filter and select to Stereo pan the channel. You can set the volume level for music, voice, and master volume also. Records the voice to be added to the music and you can also work multi tracks without any trouble.

With the Easy audio mixer 1.0 you’re provided different options to modify various aspects of the audio files and even create new ones. It also provides features like Bass, Record, Blues, etc and even you can apply different effects to make the audio file more interesting.

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Have you been into technical writing or professional writing for long or want to start with it? Well while writing, it is quite difficult to write different and better quality article each time. Now you can try Quick Article Pro 3.0 that is an online software for technical writing. With the help of the software, you can have the keyword rich articles written in no matter of time. It helps you to generate high quality articles relating to any topic and you need not to have any information about it. You can own the information rich content that can be modified for giving high impact SEO. It supports Word, WordPad and Notepad formats for publishing the articles.

Quick Article Pro 3.0 helps in generating the articles that are unique and contains the required keywords. You can have the keywords searched and article framed easily. To start working with the software you need to enter the keyword on which you want to search the content. When you click on Search the related Topics are shown in left panel from where you can select and view the content. The containing content is shown on the middle left panel from where you can have the added to the Text box. Make the required changes and modify it into a new sentence with correct information. You can view the full sentence separately and add it to your Text box. You can ‘Add a Custom Topic’ to the program. It’s easy to create ‘New Project’, ‘Open an existing Project’ and even ‘Save Project’. You’re provided with features to publish articles with Word, Notepad, Word Pad formats and even have it copied to the Clipboard. You’re also provided with and option, No. of Sentences per Search.

Quick Article Pro 3.0 also provides with Help and Language selection feature. It works to its best to get related search results for you so that you can get the content for writing even if you don’t have any special knowledge about the topic.

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Want to keep your digital photos safe? Hide Photos provide a secure container which is protected by a password. It is easily accessible with an Explorer-like interface. It displays thumbnail preview of protected photos in full color and it arranges your collection in such a way which facilitates quick search by using tags and comments.

The latest version, Hide Photos 1.3 Build 805 was released on April 21, 2008 and it has the following changes:

• Added: ability to deny access to the storage when some idle time passed
• Added: menu item “Tools-Hide to tray” with the F12 shortcut key to quickly hide program to tray
• Fixed: RAW files adding/viewing/loading accelerated

Want to know more? Visit http://hidephotos.com/