One of the big parts of the online world today centers on creating tutorials. There are so many different people discovering the internet every single day in today’s world that in order to help them along it is important for people to create tutorials. Online tutorials or alternatively tutorial software is easy to use and if done right can make things fun for the person during what might otherwise be something that is quite boring to learn. Of course, unless you have a lot of time, chances are that you aren’t going to be too thrilled with the prospect of creating a tutorial from scratch.

This is where Wink 2.0 Build 1000 comes in. It is a tutorial creation software that is completely free to use. Basically, you can use it to do things like capture screenshots to use within your tutorial, import pictures that you already have, provide explanatory captions, provide step by step instructions and even provide navigation for the tutorial so that you can split different sections of the tutorial up into different parts. It is also something that allows you to actually show mouse movements to different parts of software, so that there is absolutely no way that someone reading your tutorial could mix something up. It finally has the ability to create tutorials in flash format, executable format, .pdf format, .html format or many other commonly used tutorial formats.

More information is available from http://debugmode.com/wink/

With the advent of wireless internet, what people are seeing more and more often is that the areas around them are full of wireless connections. With people sending data back and forth as well as using wireless for convenience purposes, there is a good chance that some place near you has wireless connections that can be used. Ultimately, it is a great thing to have simply because of the convenience factor, but if you are interested in using some of the wireless signals around you then you really need to know where they happen to be first.

For example, if you want to know exactly where the wireless networks in your area are, then you can use the NetStumbler 0.4.0 to find out. It is a program that has the ability to search your area and find out the location of any 802.11b and 802.11a wireless local area networks.  In addition to that, it includes GPS functionality so that you can use the two together as a powerful tool for quite literally “stumbling onto the internet.” The name is quite apt in that sense and many people have tried and approved this completely free piece of software.

More information can be found at http://www.stumbler.net/

When you take a look at all of the different software pieces out there, what you often see is that there are a number that seem to created for some weird purpose that you wouldn’t really use on any regular basis. The Free Uninstaller is the exact opposite of that; it is a software program that is created with a very common use in mind.  When you consider the add/remove program that comes with the Windows software, you can come to the conclusion that there are a lot of faults in it. It doesn’t work all the time and the permissions issues can sometimes really derail any plans you might have had for that annoying piece of software that you just can’t seem to uninstall.

There is actually a dual purpose to this program. First, it replaces the add/remove program that comes with Windows with a far more effective uninstaller; one that can remove any application that was installed with the Windows operating system. In addition to that, it also has the ability to remove entries from the uninstall list; fixing the other big problem with Windows add/remove software. Have you ever noticed a piece of software on the list that you just removed and tried to remove it again only to be told it wasn’t a real file? That’s a very frustrating situation and the Free Uninstaller 1.1 can be used to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

More info can be found at http://www.freeuninstalleren.glt.pl/

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.

Icons are one of the staple items of today’s world.  It has even gotten to the point where to the left of the URL in most modern browsers, you can actually see an icon that represents the website you are visiting. It is really quite remarkable if you think about it, since icons were nowhere to be found just a few years ago.  However, web design of any serious nature requires the need for icon creation and that of course requires the need of specialized software specifically designed to handle the editing difficulties of smaller icons.

Enter the IconLab 1.0. Often described as being one of the most powerful free icon editors out there, it is actually a small program when all is said and done. The size belies the strength in this case however as it allows you to change icons in many different ways and supports formats up to 32-bit.  You can even change the file types of different icons and of course in addition to that you can edit them in any way that you deem necessary. All of the typical drawing effects are available.

More info available right here.

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

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.