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Windows 7 is able to play almost any video, but unfortunately it doesn’t play MKV video ( Matroska video). Here is an add-in from Divx that enable Windows 7 users to play video which are in MKV format. Because most HD video available online are in MKV format this add-in has greater importance. Moreover it also includes a shell extension that provides thumbnail images and detailed file information for MKV video in Windows explorer for an enhanced experience. The advantage of enabling MKV file support for Windows7, according to Divx, is that it give ability to use hardware acceleration for H.264 video decoding via the system H.264 decoder (where supported). More details and download ( via ) from Divx. Windows 7 uses its own DirectShow filters for decoding audio and video formats. Users who likes to use third party filters like ffdshow, CoreAVC, DivX , Cyberlink, etc in Windows 7, there is a freeware tool called Preferred Filter Tweaker for Windows 7 , which lets to use third party filt...

FoxFilter is one of the most reliable and easy to use parental control applications for Firefox browser that allow users to block inappropriate content and Web URLs. Suitable to control your young child’s internet usage. Users can enter keywords (e.g. xxx, adults, etc) or domain names to instruct FoxFilter to block any page that contains such keywords or domain names. One of the best features of this add-on is that any users (beginners or advanced users) can configure it very easily. Detailed instructions are provided with each setting. However you can not password protect the program from by-passing it or uninstalling it, you required small fee for that. But all other features still work. FoxFilter has been designed to work with Firefox on Mac, Linux and Windows.

CD2ISO is a tiny (85Kb), freeware tool that allows you to easily rip any data CD/DVD into an ISO file. The ISO file can be saved on disk as a backup copy or you can burn this ISO file to another disc to make an identical copy of the original disc. Using this tool is very simple. After installation, just select your CD/DVD drive that contains the disc to be ripped, give a name (example Backup.iso) and then click "Rip." The ripped ISO file can be copied from the program’s installed directory (normally C/Program files/Freezerware/CD2ISO). Download CD2ISO .

Microsoft Security Essentials is a light weight, simple to use free antivirus software from Microsoft that give real-time protection against viruses, spyware, and other potentially unwanted software from infecting your home computer. Now the program is out of beta and anyone can download it free from Microsoft. Key features of Security Essentials includes comprehensive malware protection, simple, free, automatic updates and easy to use. It runs quietly and efficiently in the background of your computer so that you are free to use your Windows-based PC the way you want—without interruptions or long computer wait times. Download Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows 7, Vista and XP.

There are several tools for cleaning and optimizing Windows. Here is a tiny (92Kb only) tool that lets you delete junk files, thumbnail cache, empty folders, temporary files, cookies, surfing history, and the like form your PC. The freeware tool called Red Button can also remove Windows own programs like calculator, games, media player, messenger, wallpapers, screensavers, etc, that are normally can not remove. It can disable services like system restore, remote registry service, search assistant, etc and speed up Windows. The program is quite simple to use. Just download (only 92Kb), unzip and install it. Run the program, click on 'Features'. Select an operation and click OK, then press ‘Start’ button to perform the task. The program is clean and can be downloaded from program’s home page .

Many people take advantage of online virus scanners to find any new or unknown threats that might by-passed by their existing protection. Several security companies offer such service for free. However, it is recommended that users should be aware of online scammers and use such service from trusted vendors only. Sophos Labs has recently detected a bogus website with a fake online AntiAdware scanner that installs fake AV on users’ computer. There are several such services and fake tools. Users should be aware against online scammers especially those which are not affiliated to a known anti-virus/security software company . And also it is recommended, to avoid becoming a victim, never download any file from websites that you are not familiar. [Via – SophosLabs ]

Echofon is a Firefox add-on for Twitter users. It notifies you when friends post new tweets and lets you post new tweets by just clicking a button. It is extremely handy to write new tweets as you browse the web or to share a website you are currently viewing. To post tweet, just write text in the text field and click ‘Enter’ button in the keyboard. To share a URL click the link button or shortcut key Ctrl + Shift + L, the URL will be automatically inserted into your tweet. This add-on will add an icon to the Firefox status bar and shows the unread tweets, just click on it to read/ post tweets. More details and install Echofon

Sometimes you can’t uninstall certain programs using Windows Add/Remove utility. This is mainly because of corrupted registry entries or they may not appear in add/remove program list for removing. ( See complete list of uninstaller for anti-virus programs here ) There are several tools for uninstalling software from Windows like Revo Uninstaller ; here is a tiny portable tool, especially for removing software that normally you can’t. ARP++ is an advanced version of Windows Add/Remove Program. It displays all known programs on your system that can be uninstalled through conventional means. ARP++ is very simple to use. Just select the program and click "remove" button. That’s all. Download ARP++ from program’s homepage.

Many users want to taste the flavor of Linux, especially Ubuntu on their Windows machine. I am not talking about installing Linux on Windows, but about a free tool that lets you run Linux directly on Windows without rebooting. MobaLiveCD is a portable tool (1.6Mb), especially useful for testing downloaded Linux ISO image file (Live CD) before burning them on a CD/DVD or USB stick. Users can run their favorite Linux LiveCD (ISO) just with a single click. It will run into an emulation window called ‘Qemu’. Users can either associate this tool to right click menu of the ISO image file by clicking the button ‘Right-Click menu’ or directly from a saved location. Download MobaLiveCD from program's home page

Because of advancements in technology computer security has become a major issue nowadays. Without a right security program browsing the internet or using computer is a high risk. There are several freeware and paid security programs for downloading. Paid security programs give more reliable protection by updating the signature file regularly. Free programs often have limited functionality or have no constant update. Norton and McAfee offer a free 3 month free trial for their products. (Most others have a 30 days trial only) McAfee Total Protection McAfee Internet Security McAfee Virus Scan Plus Norton Internet Security 2010 Norton Antivirus Norton 360 If you like to use a paid security program for free (3 month trial) on your computer, just visit the corresponding page shown above for details and download. [via -gHacks, Webtrickz]

Accelerator (Activities) is a new feature in Internet Explorer 8 that allows quick access to several services from any webpage via the context menu. For example, users can translate text from a webpage into any language by just selecting the text, find a location by selecting the place name or just select a word from a webpage and find results on Bing, Yahoo, Google, and many more. That is Accelerators enables users to find information without leaving the current webpage. You need not copy and paste from one webpage to another; Accelerators bring the desired information directly to the user. To get accelerator feature in Firefox, users who like to have this on their browser, just install the add-on from Mozilla . Run the browser Firefox, right click and select ‘Find More Activities’ from the context menu. Add any item you would like from the IE add-on site. Following information may also helpful to you: More information on Accelerators How to disable installing extension on Firefo...

There are numerous applications out there that perform file encryption , but securely sending or storing data can be tricky if you don't have a robust security infrastructure. With Sophos Free Encryption , you can create password-protected encrypted archives so you can share confidential data quickly and easily by e-mail. The program is very simple to use. After installation, just drag and drop any file (s) into the program window (or simply by a right clicking on a file) and click “Save’ button, enter a password and select a target to save your encrypted file. There are some options to select such as Compress data (suitable for sending large files via email), deleting source file after encrypting (for safety), etc. You can also create encrypted self-extracting executables, but on my test it gives bad result. Download Sophos Free Encryption . [Via - Stadt ]

A lot has already been heard about phishing, stolen identities, hackers, Trojan. But how they all are enter into our computer? F-Secure Health Check will help you to solve some of these security issues. F-Secure Health Check is a free web based application that tells you if your computer is protected and helps you fix possible security issues like software vulnerabilities. Unlike similar tools which require Active X and Firefox plug-in (so they only support IE and Firefox), F-Secure Health Check doesn’t need anything to download for scanning and support more browsers including Google Chrome . The only requirements are JavaScript needs to be enabled on your browser, and you need to have at least Version of Java Runtime Environment installed. It checks: 1. Is your firewall, antivirus, and anti-spyware software on and up to date? 2. Are your photographs, text documents, and other irreplaceable files automatically backed up? 3. Are there security updates available for the most widely...

Spreading viruses through USB sticks (pen drives) are not a new thing. Because of the auto run feature of these devices, viruses can easily get into a computer by modifying the Autorun. Inf file (a required file for auto run). The most recent example is Conficker virus which is widely propagating through USB drives and networks. There are several software tools and manual method for disabling auto run feature of Windows. Here is a very tiny tool (15Kb) from K7Computing to enable/disable auto run of USB sticks, CD/DVDs, Network drives and Local drives. Just download and run the portable tool K7AutorunTweaker and check the drives on which to disable Auto run. [via – Webtrickz ]

To help protect your computer from viruses and other security threats, Microsoft has published an updated list of antivirus programs for Windows 7 . Following are currently recommended antivirus software (partners program) for Windows 7. The above shown list includes almost all major brands available today. If you are looking for an antivirus for your Windows Vista, Microsoft recommends this list , for Windows XP this list . [ via ]

Compact Menu is an extension to Firefox browser that replaces the Toolbar menu items with just a single button and this new ‘Menu button’ will sits on the Navigation Toolbar. After installing the extension, drag the Compact Menu button to Navigation Toolbar. To do that, go to View – Toolbars – Customize and drag the icon (you can also specify which items are included in the compact menu from here). If the Toolbar menu is still there, just remove it by going to View – Toolbars. Download Compact Menu .

Moody Desktop is a tiny (77KB), portable application for Windows (XP, Vista and Windows 7) that lets to change desktop wallpaper at a specified time interval. It is useful for people who spent many hours in front of a computer and get bored with the same wallpaper. Using this tool is simple, after running, just choose a folder that contain wallpaper images (jpeg and bmp) and set the time at which frequency your wallpaper needs to be changed. There are a few options to set: Image position (set it ‘Stretch’), image sort, run on logon, etc. Moody Desktop is the perfect way to spice up your computer.

There are several reasons why people don’t like advertisement on a web page. The main reasons are advertising often slows the page loading and it is extremely annoying on some web pages. Of course we can disable advertisements by disabling JavaScript, but it also disables other useful script based things like comment form. Simple Adblock is a plug-in for Internet Explore (6, 7, and 8), and lets you enable or disable ads from the status bar. It blocks all kinds of advertising from websites including flash ads, banner ads, rich media, slide-ins, fly-ins and pop-ups. Simple Adblock is currently in beta (therefore you get it for free now) and the working is also quite good. [Ads blocker for Firefox ]

This is not a new tip or a great one, but may be useful in certain cases. Thumbnail preview helps users quickly identify files while browsing through Windows explorer. It is especially useful if you have a very large list of video crippling and image files on your system, but if you own an old PC or an entry level one that’s slow down because of this. However Windows 7 (and also Vista) has an option to disable this. - Open Windows explorer (double click ‘my computer’) - Click the ‘Organize’ menu and select ‘Folder and Search’ option from the drop-down list - Click on ‘View’ tab and check the box against ‘Always show icon, never Thumbnails’ . - Click OK to save the settings.

Jump list is a new feature in Windows 7 that lets users to perform any task quickly. Right-clicking on an icon in the taskbar will bring a jumplist, users can ‘jump’ to recent document or frequently visited folder, etc via this. Previously I posted an article on creating jump list for programs in Windows 7; here is another, easy to use tool for creating jump list for programs, folders and files. Jumplist-Launcher is a portable, freeware tool; it lets you add up 60 programs or files within self-defined groups inside a jump list. So you can access any items just with a click. Using the program is quite simple, just run the program, create a group (for example Programs, or files), drag and drop items in the group and click ‘Create Jumplist’ button. Close the program and drag the Jumplist-launcher exe to taskbar. Right click on it to launch an item. That’s all. Download Jumplist-Launcher .

AVG LinkScanner (current version 8.5.360) is a free, unique security tool for web surfers. It checks each web page in real-time before it opens on your computer and warns you about the threat. It doesn’t rely on "blacklists" of sites that have previously been poisoned, but instead checks for active threats right before you arrive at a page. It runs smoothly with your existing security software and won't slow down your computer. More information / Download

Losing an important file via accidental deletion, hard drive crashes or virus attacks can be devastating. To keep your critical data from an accidental loss you need to have a good back up strategy in place. There are numerous applications for data security and preservation . Here is an easy to use, wizard driven, automatic and open source program for backing up your important data. Program called Duplicati is a very simple to use program. Install and run it. Just follow the instruction given on each window. 1. Choose ‘Setup a new backup’ 2. Specify a folder that contains important data (e.g. My documents) 3. Enter a password or generate one and choose an Encryption mode (e.g. AES) 4. Select where to save your backup (USB device, remote server, etc) 5. Choose when and how often your data should run or leave it default(optional). 6. Chose a time that you want to backup the data (optional). All backups can be encrypted and are digitally signed, so that no other person can read or tamp...

Most of the software programs add an entry into Windows startup list. Several start-up items could slow down your PC. The situation is more versant if it is an entry level PC. A technical person can easily solve this by disabling unnecessary entries from the startup list using ‘msconfig’ tool. Here is a freeware program called Disable Startup that could stop programs from adding new startup items into Windows startup list. With this tool you can monitor all new startup items, disable previously added entries from start up list and can also monitor the start page of Internet Explorer and can stop any change that you don't know. Using this tool is simple, just download and install it. Default settings are enough, but you can configure it a little bit. The program works with Windows XP, Vista, and Windows7 (32 bits and 64 bits). More info and downloading is from: http://www.disablestartup.com

iReboot is a nifty utility for multi- boot Windows system and is quite useful when we need to reboot into other OS, for instance from Windows 7 to XP. Generally this requires a long process - pressing restart, waiting for Windows to shut down, waiting for your BIOS to post, and then selecting the operating system you want to boot into…. iReboot from NeoSmart Technologies ' solve this long process, just select any OS entry from iReboot and let it do the rest. iReboot is a freeware tool (Windows XP/Vista/Seven) and requires only 400KB of memory for working. Just install it; it will sit on the system tray. Right click on it and activate ‘Reboot on Selection’ option. Now onwards you can reboot into any OS from the system tray by selecting the OS. Download [ via ]

With Adobe PDF Preview Handler (Comes with Adobe Reader 8 and above) you can view PDF files directly within Outlook 2007 and Windows Explorer (in Windows Vista and Windows 7). But the PDF Preview Handler does not work properly on 64bit version of Windows Vista and Windows 7, but you can solve the issue via a simple registry change. You can fix the problem manually or automatically by running a registry file. Just follow this guide to solve the issue.

Due to recent changes in Adobe Flash Player installers, you can’t completely remove flash player using Windows Add/Remove program. For example, if you want to uninstall older version of flash player or your player has got corrupted and want to reinstall it, you need a special tool. Adobe Flash Player uninstaller from Adobe is a special tool for uninstalling flash player plug-in and active-X control from your computer. Just download the portable tool and run it. This will remove Adobe Flash Player from all browsers on the system. Before running close all applications. Download Adobe Flash Player uninstaller from official site (Windows and Mac). Similar topics: Uninstaller for almost all antivirus/firewall programs

BleachBit is an open source tool for cleaning Windows and Linux systems and can wipes clean garbage of over 50 applications. The program could improve functioning of many applications, for example, it can vacuum Firefox SQLite database to make it faster. The new BleachBits speed up your system and improves performance of several programs including Firefox, Google Chrome, IE, Opera, Safari, Adobe Reader, MS Word, etc and deletes cookies, flash cookies, browser cache, temporary files, etc. The new BleachBit (0.6.4) adds a command line interface, displays a more detailed summary, fixes bugs, etc. More information and download .

A Stack in Mac OS X gives you fast access to a folder or file from the desktop. StandaloneStack 2 gives similar feature in Windows (Windows 7, Vista and XP). Although not all features as in Mac OSX Leopard’s Stack, but the working is smooth both in Windows 7 and XP. StandaloneStack 2 is a freeware, portable tool and you can create any number of stacks, for example stack for My Document, Download location, etc. Here is a simple example to create a Stack. Download, unzip and run the program. Create a new stack by clicking ‘New Stack’; give a stack name (for example ‘Download’). Select the path of your ‘Download’ folder and click on ‘Create a Stack’ button and then click on ‘Create a shortcut on desktop’ button. That’s all. Now you can easily navigate through your download folder by just clicking on the Stack you just created. Download the program from here.

Taking screenshot of a webpage involves several steps and require more than just one application. The situation is little tough when you need to capture an entire page. Since most monitors do not support astronomical resolutions, it isn’t always possible to capture an entire page, or required a special tool. Firefox browser has a helpful add-on that can minimize your problems; just install the add-on Screengrab , visit a webpage that you want to take screen shot, click on the Screengrab icon shown on the status bar and select an option Save or Copy (to paste it into an image editing program). Then select what you want from the web-page: complete page, visible part, or selection. That’s all. You can save the screen shot as JPEG or PNG format, just select one from the Screengrab option menu ( similar tool ).

Here is a freeware tool (portable) for turning off your monitor (or monitors) via keyboard shortcuts, quite useful in certain situations. I am talking about Turn Off Monitor, an energy saving utility that allows us to turn off monitors or activate screen saver, just with a click (or via system tray). The utility also supports multiple monitors and can lock your workstation before turning off the monitor(s). You can adjust the number of seconds the program waits before shutting off the monitors after the user initiates a monitor power off. During this delay period the operation may be canceled. It works with Windows 7, Vista and XP. Here you can download the program .

DVD ripping software is an essential tool for backing up your favorite DVD video to your personal PC or put into your portable devices. WinX DVD Ripper Platinum is a professional DVD ripping software that could rip and convert different DVD video into most popular video formats such as AVI, FLV, MPEG, MP4, WMV, etc. It is fully compatible with all DVDs including copy protected DVDs, and offers fast ripping speed, stable ripping process at best video and audio quality. Now you can download WinX DVD Ripper Platinum (special edition) for totally free ( available from Sep. 15 to Sep. 30 ). No registration or anything is needed. A free version is also there [via – Ghacks ].

As Twitter has been getting more and more popular, it is increasingly targeted by spammers and account hijackers. Among your followers will be a wide range of fully automated, or computer aided Twitter accounts aiming to promote various products, directing you to adult websites, or trick you into parting with your passwords or credit card numbers. If you want to detect and eliminate them from your account, there is a quick and easy way. TwitBlock is a free online service that offers an anti-junk filter and a blocking tool for Twitter users. It lets you scan your Twitter account (required log-in) for detecting spammers and block them. And also you can analyze any account to determine whether it is spam or not.

Visual Search is a new cool feature introduced in Bing search engine, which allows people to quickly search by picture - a very useful when it comes to product search, places search, etc. Currently people outside US may not be able to access this new feature. However, you can enable this by changing the country preferences to US English in your Bing search preferences. Just enter Bing.com, click on the country displayed on the top right (thanks to Michael Aulia ), select English United States and save your preferences. Then go to Bing Visual Search (http://www.bing.com/visualsearch) and it should work (required Silverlight installed on your computer).

Duplicate music files or multiple copies of files occupy major parts of your hard drive and unnecessarily cause a large number of files to accumulate on your PC. Duplicate Music Files Finder (DMFF) is a freeware tool that can quickly and accurately track your music file duplicates and delete them. It uses advanced search techniques to detect duplicates (it searches MP3s tags, detects duplicates even if the file names are not the same etc). Before deleting a file, you can even play them in your favorite Media Player to see if they really are duplicates. The program offers 4 searching mode - file name comparison, file size comparison, CRC matching and advanced file matching (recommended for music files). The help file along with the tool lets you configure the tool very easily. Moreover you can use this tool to quickly rename bad formated music files. Just load one folder and DMFF will detect the bad formated files and let you choose which of them to rename. Download DMFF from: http://w...