The first edition of the AoA DVD RIPPER was released sometime last year, ever since then it has enjoyed a couple of updates, but now a new updated version is out.

AoA DVD RIPPER 5 provides a fast and easy way to convert your DVD movies or just the parts of the movie that you want. It copies in high quality AVI (DivX, XviD…), MPEG, WMV, iPod, PSP, 3GP, MP4, VCD (MPEG-1) and SVCD (MPEG-2) formats. It also extracts audio tracks from DVD movies.

It allows you to back up your DVD in just 3 easy steps. The fact that AoA DVD RIPPER also lets you easily select your favorite DVD clips or chapters to copy makes it a darling. With AoA DVD RIPPER, you can take your DVD’s on the plane, train or automobile; watch them on your computer, laptop or Pocket PC on vacation, at work or at school.

This new version supports direct conversion of DVD movies to MP4/3GP format that your portable device (Sony PSP, Apple iPod Video, 3G cell phone, MP4 player…) can play. Compared to Nero and the others and I prefer AoA because of its simplicity and its ability to do a lot of things due to its wide array of features.

Supported Formats

• Convert recorded DVD to Windows Media Player compatible;
• Convert DVD to MPEG1/VCD PAL/NTSC;
• Convert DVD to MPEG2/SVCD PAL/NTSC;
• Convert DVD to DivX, AVI, XviD;
• Convert DVD to WMV;
• Convert DVD to iPod;
• Convert DVD to PSP;
• Convert DVD to MP4;
• Convert DVD to 3GP;
• Convert DVD to WAV (extract audio track from a DVD)

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

– Windows 98SE/ME/2000/NT/XP/2003

– 128MB of RAM (128MB recommended)

NOTE: If in trying to rip a DVD with this program you are told that it is locked, try and run the DVD one time and then try ripping it again. You should encounter no more problems after that.

More info and free trial download available here!

It’s high time you got the best out of your PC. Fresh UI is supposed to help you do just that. Though this software has been out for a while now, it has been recently updated with hidden network settings to get dial-up (modem connection) optimization.

Loaded with hundreds of useful hidden settings, this software covers the customizing and optimizing technique that you’ll be glad to know: Customizing Windows User Interface, Optimizing system settings, Optimizing hardware settings, Customizing Windows application settings, and Control user environment with policies.

There is a slight hitch. Though it is good it is too bulky. Having to load all languages when you only need one and loading modules not even valid for your OS all contributes to that. I think they need to work on that part of the program, and give it a level of specificity that lets you take what you need and not all you can.

All in all it’s still a great program. It is compatible with Windows 95/98/2000/ME/NT 4.0 and XP. Want to give it a shot? Click HERE for free download and more info

Ok. so you take precautions online. You know to a-l-w-a-y-s use protection, because all it takes is one time!! You don’t download strange files from even stranger people! You have a virus scanner, you have an antispyware scanner, and you’re not afraid to use ’em!

But then suddenly the worst happens, your beloved computer screws up, is it spyware? Is it a virus? Get it out! Get it out! aaaahhh!! You’ve tried your scanners but it just isn’t helping!! Well, don’t panic and remain calm. There is a last resort, and it’s name is HijackThis!!

HijackThis is a small free program that scans the inner workings of your computer such as the registry. It outputs its findings to a text file, which you can then show to many computer knowledgable people in various forums online, such as such as SpywareInfo or Computer Cops.

Then they can hopefully tell you exactly whats wrong with your computer and how you can get things back to normal again! HijackThis is a serious yet simple tool for anyone who needs to sort out a spyware problem that seems too much for scanners, and you can get it here and information on using it is here

Are you looking for the best way to print your favorite online content without those annoying advertisements? Are you just tired of wasting your precious ink on unnecessary things? I’ve found the perfect solution. It’s Printer Friendly 1.4. I use to have the same issues; wanting to get some articles or mail printed but ending up wasting ink on unnecessary adverts, not being able to print in a nice format from certain sites because they don’t have a printer friendly link, until I discovered Printer Friendly.

Printer Friendly like the name suggests, helps you to print all of your favorite online content in a printer-friendly, reader-friendly format. The fact that the website itself doesn’t have to have a printer-friendly link makes this software a must have.

The pages printed through Printer Friendly retain all of the content you need, without any of the banner advertisement, or uncomfortable web page formatting. And above all you get to save hundreds of dollars a year on printer ink and paper.

No matter which Operating System you use, compatibility is no problem as it works well with Windows 98/ME/XP/NT/2000/2003 without any problem.

One thing is worthy of note though, for perfect installation you must make sure your Internet Explorer is closed during installation.

With Printer Friendly, you can enjoy printing your favorite online articles, blogs or news stories, or any other website content, in an easy to read format, without wasting paper or printer ink on the things you don’t want to print. Ready to check it out? Click here!

Everybody knows what Wikipedia is, right? It’s an online encyclopedia in which anyone can submit and edit articles. So, for a long time it was useful and safe site until now, I guess.

The German edition of Wikipedia was used as the vehicle to convince users to install what they thought was a “fix” for a new variant of the Blaster worm (Lovesan/MSBlast), which affected over 50,000 Windows computers in the summer of 2003. The attackers then sent out a German-language e-mail purporting to be from Wikipedia that told users to visit the page.

Thankfully Wikipedia’s superiors reacted almost immediately and thjse hijacked pages were removed, but still the fact that you can catch a virus down at Wikipedia sounds pretty scary. Serious impact on Wikipedia’s reputation. But I guess all’s well that ends well.

Paint.net is a free image editor which is much more powerful than Microsoft Paint Application which is inbuilt in Windows Operating System. You can fulfill most of your image editing tasks with it because it offers all the missing features like layers, unlimited undo, effects, history etc. You don’t have to spend money in buying application like Adobe Photoshop for your general image editing requirements. Project Leader Rick Brewster calls it ‘Photoshop for everyone’ & i completely agree with his statement after seeing at the power of this application.

It’s development was started by the Washington State University Students as an undergraduate senior design project in the year 2004. Paint.net is also mentored by Microsoft who otherwise don’t support Open Source applications. It has been downloaded over 2 million times since it’s launch.

Paint.net team is working on it’s third iteration which will offer many missing features already in Photoshop like Merge Layer Down, Gradient Tool supporting linear, radial, diamond, and conical gradient modes. Apart from these features, they are working on bug fixes, work flow improvement & other such areas.

For more info and download, click here.

Adobe Soundbooth is a new audio application by Adobe for Video, Flash and other such visual professionals who are not comfortable with complexity of Applications like Adobe Audition. It will be included in Adobe Video Production Bundle next year replacing Audition. It’s a wonderful application for quick audio editing without going through the steep curve of an advanced Audio application which is basically designed for Audio professionals. But things are changed with the arrival of Soundbooth. It will make it a breeze to edit audio with very intuitive interface which will make all visual designers & audio novices to finish their audio related work with much ease without the trouble of learning the nuisances of complex audio applications which are good for Audio Experts only.

It is integrated with Flash Cue points and exports the markers as XML file. You will see ‘Edit in Soundbooth’ inside Adobe Premiere Features like these will make life much easier for video & interactive designers.

You can quickly do most common tasks like removing noise, rumbling sounds or click & pops which are under ‘Tasks’ tab. Extract Audios from avi, wmv files, apply effects. It can also prove to be a wonderful tool for podcasters to quickly record & enhance their podcasts & reach out to the world.

So, this is a new entrant in the Audio Market which will be launched in 2007 and hopefully, it won’t get cluttered like Advanced Audio Applications in the coming years. It will be interesting to watch the progress of Soundbooth which promises to finish our audio tasks quickly without dealing with complex set of tools.

You can download Soundbooth Beta from here.

I’ve always believed that every man had a right to his privacy. That was why I had problems with Windows storing hidden records of everything I did on the Internet. I mean I do appreciate the fact that I could always go back and pick up certain things from where I left off through my history. But the issue was I wasn’t the only one with access to my PC and I needed my privacy safeguarded. Then came Smart Protector Pro and my problems were solved. You can safeguard your privacy, job, business secrets, and anything else you want to keep private with just one click in Windows with Smart Protector.

It helps you to completely erase your Internet Explorer history, AutoComplete, recent document list, recycle bin, cookies, temporary files (cache), typed URLs (the drop down address list) You even get to choose what you want erased and what you want left alone.
The beauty of it all is that, unlike some other Internet erasers that work for specific programs, Smart Protector Pro is compatible with Internet Explorer, AOL, Netscape, MSN and CompuServe.

Smart protector comes in two different versions, Smart Protector Standard and Smart Protector Pro. The standard version just erases your history, Autocomplete, recycle bin, cookies etc but in addition to all the features of standard version, Smart Protector Pro provides: Scheduling, Stealth mode, Cookie Manager, Emergency key, Homepage protection, custom erase etc. For more details on the features of both versions click HERE.

The most important feature is that Smart Protector Pro protects your privacy. Smart Protector Pro dynamically configures itself for Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP. It cleans evidence from multiple user profiles. Take SP and clear history and other tracks with just one click! One major limitation though is the fact that it’s only free for 15 days, after which you must purchase it.

For trial version download and more info click here.

Okay, it’s time to put away Windows Explorer for good. xplorer2 lite is a very fast and innovative freeware file manager for Windows. Unlike Windows Explorer it has a tabbed interface–so you will no longer need to have multiple Windows Explorer’s open!

What’s also great is that it remembers what folders/tabs you had open the last time you used it; so you won’t have to renavigate to them every time you start the program. xplorer2 lite has many other features such as favorites, file previews, mass renaming and many other features you can find listed on its homepage.

I used to use ExplorerXP but it’s buggy and doesn’t seem to be developed on very often. Dragging files often didn’t work, renaming by the typical 2-slow-clicks on a filename didn’t work, and it didn’t show my Gmail Drive, plus it seems to take twice the RAM to run than xplorer2 lite. I also tried other freeware file managers like FreeCommander, A43, JExplorer and others, but they either didn’t support tabs or just didn’t work as well as xplorer2 lite.

My computer was giving me a hard time, operating at snail speed, freezing every now and then until RegCure came to my rescue. RegCure is an advanced Registry Cleaner. Offering the most comprehensive feature set on the market, RegCure is the PC fix preferred by PC users.

RegCure uses the most sophisticated technology available to analyze your registry for missing, obsolete, and corrupt entries. It is compatible with all Microsoft products and third party applications. The fact that it seeks out those remnants left behind from failed installations, incomplete un-installations, disabled drivers, and spyware applications makes it a PC user’s delight.
 
Yeah, I think I can say RegCure is one of the best registry cleaners, the best in my rating, as it does its work error fixing quickly and accurately. Scan repair and optimize your PC using RegCure like I did mine. You get a free download to scan your PC but to actually fix the errors you will have to buy it.
 
Your frustrating Windows errors have met their match; it’s Regcure TO THE RESCUE.
 
For more info and free download for free scan, CLICK HERE