The application is very lightweight and portable, no installation required. Just run choose your options and click 'Apply Settings' button. That's all.

Mini Regedit can be used in all Windows operating systems. Interested readers can be downloaded the free application at this link

Once installed, the program set to run every 30 minutes (that you can change) via the windows task scheduler. That means, the program doesn't run always in the back ground, once it does its job, it closes and doesn't run again until the task scheduler runs it.

The new version of CleanMem has included a mini monitor that allows a user to keep an eye on current memory usage and clean the system memory with one click of a button.

CleanMem is a freeware and compatible with Windows 7, Vista and XP. It can be downloaded from this link.

No special technical knowledge required to configure Any Weblock. The only requirement is domain names (http://example.com) and sub domain names (www. example.com, game.example.com, etc)

After installation, enter a password, and then add web address (s) and sub domains you want to block and save the settings.

A good feature of Any Weblock is that, blocking remains intact even after uninstalling the application. You need to unblock every entry before uninstalling the program.

Any Weblock can be downloaded at source. [Via]

Furthermore, it can rebuild the cookie, if you removed it from your computer, unless you have removed them from all locations and reset the local storage. So, even if you have deleted the standard and flash cookies, Evercookie implemented website can still identify you.

According to the developer,

“Evercookie is a JavaScript API that produces extremely persistent cookies in a browser…… Evercookie accomplishes this by storing the cookie data in several types of storage mechanisms that are available on the local browser”.

It stores data in:

1. Standard HTTP Cookies
2. Local Shared Objects (Flash Cookies)
3. Silverlight Isolated Storage
4. Storing cookies in RGB values of auto-generated, force-cached PNGs using HTML5 Canvas tag to read pixels (cookies) back out
5. Storing cookies in Web History
6. Storing cookies in HTTP ETags
7. Storing cookies in Web cache
8. window.name caching
9. Internet Explorer userData storage
10. HTML5 Session Storage
11. HTML5 Local Storage
12. HTML5 Global Storage
13. HTML5 Database Storage via SQLite

Here I am talking about a plug-in for Firefox called ‘Anonymizer Nevercookie’. Its developer claims that it can prevent Evercookie from storing data in the browser. It does this by creating a new profile for the Firefox’s private browsing mode and removes Evercookie from all locations after the browsing session.

If you’re concerned more about your privacy, you can try this plug-in from here. After installing the plug-in, launch the Firefox browser and go to Tools - Start Private Browsing.

A new browser window will open. It will be branded with a blue Navigation Menu bar. Use this window for your private browsing session. To leave private browsing mode, close the private browsing window in the parent Firefox window, go to Tools - Stop Private Browsing.

More details and download available here (via)

How this tool works? TopWinPrio checks your windows once a second (that can be changed). The active window will receive a higher priority than normal. When you shift to another window, the previous window will return back to its default priority and the new active window will now get higher priority.

TopWinPrio is a free, lightweight application that can be downloaded at source (requires .Net framework 3.5 for Windows XP)

Note: TopWinPrio will not boost applications run with administrator rights. Do not use High priority on online games, it will conflict with your network driver’s priority and that will cause your game to lag.

The most attractive feature of Simpo PDF Creator Pro is it can preserve hyperlinks from Word and PowerPoint and auto generate PDF bookmark from Word document.

Simpo PDF Creator Pro normally costs $29.95, but on back Friday (Today) you can get it free from the developer. Just visit here and enter you email to get a free license. Offer active only for 24 hours.

You can download Simpo PDF Creator Pro from here.

The latest release of HTTPS Everywhere offers improved protection against the latest buzz word Firesheep, a Firefox add-on that watches fro cookies, and lets others to log into your account if you are browsing on an open wireless network.

HTTPS Everywhere now provides much better protection against it for Facebook, Twitter and Hotmail accounts.

The latest release adds new protection for bit.ly, Dropbox, Amazon AWS, Evernote, Cisco and Github. More details about the latest release and download available at source

Following are few new features of Opera 11 beta:

• Tab Stacking: helps you keep your tabs organized. It lets you drag one tab over another to create a group. You can keep dozens of web pages open, organized and under control.
• A safer address field: Opera's new address field hides the complexity of long web addresses and gives you better control of your security when browsing.
• Extended auto-update: A new auto-update system ensures that your extensions and Opera Unite apps are always up to date.
• Enhanced email: A new mail panel gives you control over the order in which your accounts and mail items show up. You can just drag items where you want them.
• Extensions support: You can now browse Opera's extensions catalog to add new functionality easily.

Opera 11 beta can be downloaded from here

According to Agnitum, the free version "does not provide the depth of configuration, automation and control offered by the commercial suite." Instead, it comes with optimal default settings to address web-borne threats including known and zero-day viruses, spyware, hacker attacks and intrusions, spam, and more.

This lightweight security solution is fully compatible with Windows 7, Vista, and XP, 2000 (both 32- and 64-bit) and can be downloaded free at source.

Here is the comparison list between Pro and Free editions. (Via)

Here are some key features of "IOBit Password Folder":

1. Hide from view: You can Hide folders, files, pictures and videos from prying eyes. No one can see them except you.
2. Block Access: Password protects files, folders, and programs from accessing.
3. Write Protection: Protect your files from being modified by others.
4. Privacy Protection: Keep your private data, files, pictures or videos into Password Folder, thus prevent data theft.

To use IOBit Password Folder, no particular technical knowledge is requiring. Just install, give a password and then drag and drop any file or folder that you want to protect. From the option menu, you can change password or enable or disable options like Write access, Read access, and hide.

IOBit Password Folder (beta) is a freeware and can be downloaded at here

OCRconvert.com is a free online OCR service that allows you to convert PDF, JPEG and scanned images into editable documents. Simply upload your file and the server side program will process the file for any editable text and will send the results back to you, which you can either download the text in for of word document or copy & past online.

Another solution for extracting text from images is using Google Docs service. Go to http://docs.google.com and log in with your Google account.

Then click ‘Upload’ button and choose an image or PDF file to upload. Check the box against ‘Convert text from PDF or image files to Google Docs documents” and then click ‘Start Upload’ button.

After finishing the uploading process, click the uploaded file. If your image file is identifiable, it’ll open the extracted text file in the document editor. You can save the documents or edit it from there.

Redirect to HTTPS can also modify the links on pages you open to make them point directly to the HTTPS version.

Supported websites are Facebook, Gmail, Google, Hotmail, New York Times, Twitter, Wikipedia, etc.

You can Install Redirect to HTTPS from Opera add-on gallery. Similar add-on for Firefox.

A most attractive feature of this Media Wiki add-in is you can directly save any word documents into Wiki Format or Wiki style markup without knowing Wiki formatting code.

How it work? Download the MediaWiki Add-in from Microsoft and install it. Just create a document as usual or open an old document. Save it by clicking File – Save As – MediaWiki.

You can paste this newly converted Wiki Markup into your MediaWiki page.

Besides the standard PDF reader features, Adobe Reader X can also open and interact with all types of PDF contents, including forms and multimedia.

Key Features of Adobe Reader X (Adobe Reader v.10)

1. Protected Mode (for Windows only) in Reader helps ensure safer viewing of PDF files, which is enabled by default.
2. Open and interact with all types of PDF content like multimedia, drawings, email messages, spreadsheets, etc.
3. Directly access Adobe’s online services and can do common tasks such as creating PDF files, securely sharing and storing them.
4. Support for mobile devices such as Android, Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry Tablet OS

You can download Adobe Reader X (Version 10) from here for Windows and offline installer from here. For Android you can download at Android Market via your Android device.

With this portable tool, you can have a lot of options and settings for each default screensaver such as, for instance, number of bubbles or ribbons, type of bubbles or ribbons, size etc.

Moreover, you can see your changes right way, without pressing OK and wait for the screensaver to activate. (Via)

Interested readers can download (182Kb) Idle Time Edit free at this link.

One of the most common causes of Microsoft word documents getting corrupted is damage to the Normal.dot file. This file is also referred to as the global template to recover a file. To check this:

Open damaged word document. Click Files – Option – Add-ins – Template – Go (see screen-shot below, Word 2010).

If the document template box has an entry other than the ‘Normal’, then click ‘Attach’ button. Look for the Normal file in the attach templates and click open. Click Ok to close the dialogue box and close Word.

Now, click Start button and enter the text winword /a in the Run search box. This will open Word without loading any add-ins (troubleshooting mode of Word). If your document doesn’t cause any earlier problem, it means some add-ins that causes the problem. Save this document as a new file and open the Word as normal.

Another very simple technique is changing the format of the damaged file to another extension. Open Word and click File - Save as.

Save the file with a different extension by selecting from the save as type dropdown list menu. For example, Rich text format, it will save the file in an ordinary text file without formatting. Exit the word and start it once again and open the converted file. Save the file in the Original word format.

All-In-One Tray can be downloaded at this link. Run it, it’ll place an icon on the task bar, just click on it to open the window. To minimize the window just click Winn + Q key.

You can also add your own application short cut to this program from the option menu. To change 'User Custom Path Label', go to settings.ini, look at the last line. Change it to whatever name you want.

If your system facing this issue, that is, some icons on My Computer, Windows Explorer, Desktop and Quick Launch bar are randomly changed to other icons, Take a jump to the KB 2396571 article and run the Fix it to fix the problem.

If that doesn’t work, you can also fix this problem manually. For that follow these steps:

1. Close all open windows if a Close Open Programs Interaction dialog box is displayed.
2. Verify the Max Cached Icons registry value that locates in the following registry subkey equals to 2000: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
3. Delete IconCache.db that locates in the following path:

Windows XP: %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data

Windows Vista or Windows 7: %userprofile%\AppData\Local [via]

Wondershare Disk Manager has two mode of operation. TheWizard mode help beginners complete the most common partitioning tasks and Expert mode is designed for familiar users to manage partitions and hard disk in a faster way.

Features of Wondershare Disk Manager:

1. Easy to use, designed for both novice and expert users
2. Helps you re-structure hard disk for maximum disk use
3. Partition manager can create, delete, resize, copy…and recover partitions
4. Disk management allows you to copy hard disk, delete all partitions, etc.
5. Complete wizards make partition management a piece of cake

Wondershare Disk Manager is freeware and support Windows XP, Vista and 7 (32 bit). You can download (5.19Mb) the application at here.

The program can run from a USB drive, and it also supports command line parameters to automatically clean detected traces or it can load selected traces from an INI file.

Web Browsers Traces Eraser is very simple to use, when you run the program, it’ll analyze your system for Internet traces and automatically put a check in the traces present in the left panel. Click the button “Clean” to erase selected traces.

Web Browsers Traces Eraser can be downloaded at this link.

1. Outlook AutoConfig is very easy to use. Just run the tool and provide your email address (if the mail client has not been used before, launch it and close it before using this tool), your display name will be suggested automatically.
2. Pick the mail client you want to create, and then click ‘Create account’ button.

3. Run your mail client (example - Outlook), you will be asked to enter your password. Enter your password and click OK. That’s all.

CodeTwo Outlook AutoConfig is a portable, free tool, you can download it at this link.

Duplicate Cleaner is very simple to use. Select a ‘search path’ (My documents, any folder, etc) and add these in the ‘Search Paths’. Then, select file filter option, then, choose any option (example, same content) under ‘Find Files With’.

You can also specify maximum or minimum files size, then click ‘GO’ button to scan the duplicates. You can then remove the duplicates.

The scanning process is impressive and it works with Windows 2000, Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. Duplicate Cleaner can be downloaded free at this link.

This is very simple. Right click on the Taskbar in Windows 7 and select Toolbars – New Toolbars.

It'll open a ‘Browse’ dialog box. Copy and paste the following code in the folder text box and click on ‘Select folder’ button. It’ll add ‘Programs’ toolbar to Taskbar near the tray icon.

%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

To bring this ‘Programs’ toolbar near to the start button (Start ORB), once again right click on the taskbar and uncheck the option ‘Lock the Taskbar’. It’ll display a placeholder to drag the toolbar. Drag the placeholder handle and drop it just after the Start ORB.

You’ll also see many folders under "Programs" toolbar taking lots of space of your Taskbar. To remove this, double-click on drag-handle of Taskbar button. It'll move the Taskbar button toolbar and you'll see only "Programs" text in the newly added toolbar. (Via)

However, ‘Instant Previews’ feature is not available in Opera. Opera users need to make a small change in their browser, just like we did it for Google Instant.

1. Visit http://www.google.com/webhp?sclient=psy; in Opera.
2. Right click anywhere on the blank page and select "Edit Site Preferences”
3. Go to the "Network" tab and choose "Identify as Firefox" from the drop down list on the bottom.

4. Click OK to save and refresh the page. That’s it.

But, the question is how to identify the installed flash player version and how to update it? Besides, Flash Player is available as a plug-in for Mozilla Firefox, IE, Opera and Safari (Google Chrome has integrated Flash support), so, is it necessary to update each and every one.

To check the Flash Player version, visit here, there you’ll see a page as shown above. Shown at right top is your flash player version, shown at bottom is current version. Update it if they are different from this link.

Note: If you have multiple browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera, you need to update each one’s flash plug-ins separately. For Google Chrome you need to upgrade your browser. [Via]

NoVirusThanks Anti-Rootkit is a sophisticated rootkit analysis tool that can detect all hidden processes, hidden drivers, stealth DLL modules, code hooks, etc, existed on your hard drive and system memory.

If it find any suspicious activity or stealth objects (processes, modules, drivers etc.), it’ll highlights them in Red color. However, the program can’t remove detected items automatically, that’s beyond the scope of this tool, but offers a few forms of "unhooking" and file wiping options.

NoVirusThanks Anti-Rootkit is a must-have for anyone seeking true 32-bit Windows NT kernel security and system threat analysis. The vast detection range of industry standard rootkits is truly amazing especially without compromising system stability even in the most hostile, malware-plagued environments.

NoVirusThanks Anti-Rootkit is available in two versions. Free version has some limitations. More details and download.

Paragon Backup & Recovery 2010 Free Advanced Edition has the following main features:

1. User friendly, wizard driven interface simplifies even the most complex operations
2. Complete Backup /Differential Backup - Create an exact copy of your PC/ backup only changed data.
3. Backup - FTP servers, CD/DVD/Blu-ray, Network drives as well as the secured hidden hard partition (Backup Capsule)
4. P2V Copy - migrate a live Win2K+ physical system to a virtual environment.
5. Options to restore an entire disk, separate partitions or only files you need from the previously created backup image.

Paragon Backup & Recovery 2010 Free Advanced Edition can be downloaded (93Mb)at Paragon website. You need to register here to get a license to install the software. Comparison between Pro and Free Edition.

Harvest Time images below

Download Harvest Time from Microsoft Personalization gallery.

RUBotted is a free product and this new release features improved detection of unknown versions of bot clients and better cleaning capabilities. Moreover, it is fully compatible with other antivirus products that may already be installed in your systems.

Bots are malicious files that enable cybercriminals to secretly take control of your computer. RUBotted protects your system by continuously monitoring your computer for potential infection and suspicious activities.

RUBotted can be downloaded free at this link.