This power-packed application tweaks your Registry to optimize computer performance, but novices shouldn’t expect much hand-holding. RegToy has a pretty nested-button-and-tab interface, which may put off some because it doesn’t follow windows standards. Options are primarily of the enable/disable variety, and most changes take effect immediately.

Though the tweak options are carefully labeled, users must know the consequences of altering them, as the few onscreen notes don’t provide adequate assistance. You can restore the Registry settings to the Windows default, but that’s an emergency final resort, as it will undo many changes made by you and some other programs. RegToy also includes a poorly explained feature for saving and loading settings. Other features include nifty utilities such as a file renamer, a file shredder, a start-up manager, an uninstall manager, and a disk cleaner for removing unnecessary files.

You also get a Registry cleaner for removing invalid Registry entries (I prefer CCleaner). It’s very rare to find such a powerful and free tweaking application. Intermediate to advanced users will quickly make RegToy an integral part of their toolboxes.

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This is a list of the top free antivirus software you can use for your computer protection.

 

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition

From AVG Technologies:

AVG Free Edition is the well-known antivirus protection tool. AVG Free is available free of charge to home users for the life of the product. Rapid virus database updates are available for the lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers. AVG Free is easy to use and will not slow your system down (low system resource requirements. Highlights include automatic update functionality, the AVG Resident Shield, which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run, free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product, and AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files.

 

Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus

From Avira:

Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus is a comprehensive, easy to use antivirus program, designed to offer reliable free of charge virus protection to home-users only. Avira offers: Extensive Malware Recognition of viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, worms, etc. Automatic incremental updates of antivirus signatures, engine and entire software. Permanent virus protection, with Virus Guard real time monitoring. Install and configuration in just a couple of steps. Virus protection against known and unknown threats, using an advanced heuristic system. Scheduler where you can set the scanner to make automatic virus scans or updates on your system. Forum and phone support, Knowledge Base with virus descriptions available on Web site. Rootkit Detection and Removal. Version 8 adds an enhanced interface, a modularized AV-search engine for improved scan performance, an integrated failsafe security system, SMTP support for AntiVir MailGuard and a new Fast Activation Tool (FACT).

 

Avast Home Edition

From ALWIL Software:

Avast Home Edition is a complete ICSA & Checkmark certified antivirus, Checkmark certified anti-spyware & anti-rootkit package. Avast includes the following components: On demand scanner with sinkable simple interface, just select what do you want to scan in which way and press the Play button; On access scanner, special providers to protect the most of available e-mail clients; Instant messaging–ICQ, Miranda; Network traffic–intrusion detection, lightweight firewall; P2P protection for Kazaa, BitTorrent; Web shield–monitors and filters all HTTP traffic; NNTP scanner–scans all Usenet Newsgroup traffic and all operations with files on PC; Boot time scanner–scans disks in the same way and in the same time as Windows CHKDSK does.

 

PC Tools Antivirus Free Edition

From PC Tools:

PC Tools Antivirus Free Edition protects you against the most nefarious cyber-threats attempting to gain access to your PC and personal details. Going online without protection against the latest fast-spreading viruses, worms and Trojans can result in infections within minutes. Once infected, the virus will usually attempt to spread itself to your friends, family and associates by accessing your e-mail contacts and networked PCs. The infection may also allow hackers to access files on your PC, use it to launch attacks against other computers and Websites or to send mass spam email. That’s why PC Tools Antivirus Free Edition provides protection, with rapid database updates, IntelliGuard real-time file, Internet & e-mail protection and comprehensive system scanning to ensure your system remains safe and virus free. Version 5 features new improved scan engine, smaller memory footprint, and much improved system performance.

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Snapter is software that lets you use a digital camera as a mobile scanner. The software automatically crops, stretches, flattens, and converts photos of documents, whiteboards, posters, business cards and receipts into more portable images. Whether you are in a library, conference room or classroom, just snap the photo and run it through Snapter to produce images that look as if they have been scanned through a flatbed scanner!

Snapter Ice is software that lets you use a camera as a scanner. The software automatically crops, stretches, flattens, and process pictures of business cards, documents and whiteboards into more usable forms.

With Snapter, you can use your digital camera to capture information around you that matters: receipts, business cards, whiteboards in a classroom, posters in a conference, a menu at your favorite restaurant, or even books in a library. Just take a photo of the document, run it through the Snapter software and you will have an output that looks like it has been scanned through a flatbed scanner.

Download snapter.

Computer experts all agree that junk files can kill a computer. Not literally, of course. We found that a very large number of junk files will eventually grind your computer to a halt. The more junk files you have, the slower your computer, Internet browser and other programs become. They can even cause “out of memory” and other errors. So what exactly is a junk file?

A junk file is a file that a program left behind. Programs typically create hundreds of temporary files a day. Some programs “forget” to remove these files and they clog up the system preventing your PC from performing even the simplest of tasks. Your PC ends up with thousands of junk files slowing your computer indefinitely. Here’s why…

Whenever a program creates a file or deletes a file into a Recycle Bin, your computer looks for a unique file name. The more junk files you have the longer the system takes to find that unique file name. Internet browsers keep downloaded images and pages in the cache in order to quickly show them the next time you visit the same page. However it’s a double edged sword. Too many cached files will also slow down the Internet browser.

Finally, if you do have a lot of junk files, then your disk defragmentation, antivirus or antispyware programs have to deal with a much greater number of files. This of course makes them work much slower.

But that’s not half of it. You will find that trying to locate, open or save the necessary document takes longer. Even the time your PC takes to start up or shut down may increase from several seconds to minutes.

Most people resort to is buying a new, faster computer as a solution. However the root of the problem will remain. In just a few months, a newly bought computer will start getting slower. Basically, you can’t expect to stay fit if you eat junk food and never exercise.

One way to solve this problem is to keep your computer clean with the maintenance software, named BoostSpeed developed at Auslogics. This program removes junk files, fixes registry errors, and optimizes Internet connection and system settings for maximum computer performance.

This is possible because Windows is shipped with one-size-fits-all settings and does not take into account that different computers have different disk and memory size or different types of internet connection (Dial Up, DSL or Cable).

Here’re the tools that the program uses to make such an improvement possible:

• Disk Cleaner removes junk files and Registry Cleaner fixes registry errors that often cause computer slow downs and frequent error messages and crashes;
• Any remaining fragmentation on hard disk drives and in the registry is eliminated with Disk Defrag and Registry Defrag tools;
• Internet Optimizer will adjust Internet connection for the best performance with your Internet Service Provider (ISP);
• Startup and Uninstall Managers will remove parasitic software installed on your computer without your permission.

This program may not show drastic results for a brand new computer, but any computer older than 2-3 months will certainly benefit. You will also find other features such as Track Eraser and PC Security very useful for your daily work.

 

Axialis IconWorkshop v6.11 Corporate Edition - December 14, 2007 (formerly AX-Icons) - is a powerful tool designed to Create, Extract, Convert, Manage and Redistribute WindowsIcons. It has a fully integrated workspace that permits you to work efficiently and create professional icons in minutes.

Create professional Windows icons: - Full support for Windows Vista PNG-compressed icons.

IconWorkshop loads, creates, edits, saves Vista icons. Microsoft Vista, the next version of Windows to arrive, includes a new PNG compressed icon format. It permits to create icons up to 256×256 with alpha channel with smaller file size.

Axialis IconWorkshop now fully supports this new format in all features: edition, automatic format creation, batch creation, batch conversion, format normalization… Don’t wait and create today your icons for Vista.

Create quality icons for Windows and Macintosh OS:

- Axialis IconWorkshop is the first icon editor which permits to create Windows and Macintosh icons. You can easily create icons for both systems. IconWorkshop creates Windows icons up to XP and Macintosh icons up to 256×256 Tiger (Mac OS 10.4). Windows XP and Mac OSX come with a generations of icons using variable transparency. This feature permits to create beautiful icons with smooth borders and shadows. You need a professional tool to create such icons. Axialis IconWorkshop has been designed with one goal in mind: “Icon Quality”. Enjoy the powerful editor which permits to create the various image formats of an icon from an original drawing without quality loss.

Convert icons between Macintosh and Windows - Macintosh designers are prolific, especially when it comes to icon creation. Use IconWorkshop to read Mac icons and convert them to Windows. It reads all kind of Mac icons up to Tiger (OSX 10.4).

If you’re a software developer, you’ll enjoy the ability to create applications for both Windows and Macintosh platforms by converting your icons. If you’re simply a Windows user you’ll be able to use Mac icons on your XP desktop.

This new version includes a feature which permits to convert icons between the two systems in batch-processing mode (several icons are converted in one fast operation). IconWorkshop fully supports MacBinary file format. It permits to easily transfer icons between Macintosh and Windows.

Automatically create icons from images - Axialis IconWorkshop features a powerful editor. But sometimes it’s easier to create an icon from an existing image. Basically, you can import all kind of existing images: PSD, PNG, BMP, JPEG, GIF…

An exclusive feature permits to create an icon, with its several image formats, in just one operation! All is done automatically: Alpha channel is preserved, palettes are calculated for 256 color formats and even 16 color formats with transparency are generated.

Export icons to images to illustrate your applications - If you create applications, you know that images are required to create an attractive user interface. IconWorkshop permits to export any image included in an icon (Windows/Mac) to an external bitmap file. You’ll be able to easily use these images in your program to create beautiful toolbars for example.