Niceify your Windows with Pitaschio

Pitaschio adds a few very basic window manipulation features to Microsoft Windows which probably should have been included in the first place. Essentially, Pitaschio tries to make Windows a slightly better neighborhood in which to live.

With features which allow you to minimize regular windows to the system tray, keep windows from opening with any part outside the desktop area, window transparency adjustment using the scroll wheel and a whole list more, Pitaschio goes a pretty long way towards enhancing the rather bland set of features available for window management in the world’s most common OS.

If you’re unhappy with the weak feature set in Windows, Pitaschio could help close the gap.

 

source [downloadsquad]

LightZone – Powerful Photo Editing Software

LightZone, the RAW photo converter, can cost you hundreds of dollars for the Windows or OS X versions, however, the Linux version is free. LightZone is a powerful photo editing software package based on tonal zones with an easy intuitive interface.

The Windows and OS X versions are available in a Basic edition for $150 and a Full version for $250. The Linux version is functionally equivalent to the Full version, and did we mention, is free? LightZone is copyrighted by Light Crafts of Palo Alto, CA. They do not provide online support for the Linux version however, Anton Kast, Light Crafts’ chief architect and Linux devotee maintains a separate page to keep the Linux version updated and to provide technical support.

source [Linux.com / downloadsquad]

The Top 10 Freeware Applications from Microsoft

We have compiled a list ten all-time favorite software programs from Microsoft that are free to download without any limitations.

Microsoft ZoomIt – Like a screen pen, ZoomIt lets you draw or write free-hand on the desktop screen in various colors. [screenshot]

Windows Live Writer – A must have WYSIWYG blog editor for Windows that is compatible with all popular blogging platforms including WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and LiveJournal.

WebCam TimerShot – lets you take pictures at specified time intervals from a Webcam connected to your computer and save them to a location that you designate. Great for a spy camera or making stop motion animations.

Microsoft Time Zone Utility – It runs as a tiny icon in your system tray and allows you to watch the current date and time of upto 5 cities around the world simultaneously.

Microsoft SyncToy v1.4 – A free utility to help you copy and move files across folders or for keeping directory contents in sync with each other. SyncToy also keeps track of renames to files and will carry the changes over to the synchronized folder.

Windows Media Encoder 9 Series – a versatile screen capture and screencasting software from Microsoft. Windows Media Encoder can convert recorded audio or video to Windows Media format for distribution on the web.

Windows Defender – This free Windows AntiSpyware program can detect and remove spyware from your computer much like Lavasoft Ad-aware or Zonelabs softwae.

Microsoft Photo Story 3 – An excellent software for creating video slideshows of your digital photos with music and titles. The software also lets you create your own music loops. [details]

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 – This VMWare like software allows you to run multiple operating systems on the same computer simultaneously. For example, you can work on Linux, DOS, XP or even Windows 98 inside Windows Vista.

Microsoft Calculator Plus – This includes all the mathematical functions offered in the standard Microsoft Calculator plus conversions between different measurement units for area, temperature, volume and even currency.

source [digital inspiration]

Highly Configurable Desktop Clock

You may already have a widget for everything under the sun, but PC users, you might want to try this Systemetrix desktop software tool that not only tells you the time, but lets you know a whole lot of other stuff about your system as well. This clean-looking clock is not the only skin you can put on this sucker, and it can show you hundreds of things about your system, such as e-mail stats, system resources used, drive space left, your IP address and lots more. We loaded it up and it works great. Best of all, it’s absolutely free.

source [gizmodo]

Outlook on the Desktop

Outlook on the Desktop is a free application built on .Net by Michael Scriv. It allows you to pick any one of the main Outlook views (Inbox, Calendar, Tasks, etc), and display it directly on your desktop. The display is shown in a mildly opaque way, so that you can still see your desktop wallpaper (or in my case, icons) beneath the Outlook display. However, the coolest part of this utility is the fact that the view on your desktop is active; you can double click on a day if you’re viewing the calendar, and up pops the standard appointment creation dialog.

It seems like there have been a number of recent attempts to set free the personal management information you’ve got locked away in Microsoft Outlook and expose it on the desktop of your computer. I personally have two problems with this. First, I almost never have all of my running applications minimized so I rarely see my desktop. Second, over the past 6 months I have been unable to reduce the number of icons on my desktop to the point where I can actually see the wallpaper I have set, never mind trying to read something displayed there.

If you’re looking for an Outlook widget type of utility on steroids, Outlook on the Desktop may be just the ticket.

source [downloadsquad]

Project Time management online with timeXchange

timeXchange is an online peer-to-peer application that lets users record and report time and expenses, collect and approve team reporting, and protect and control data online. Its important for any worker to keep track of time in order to ensure work schedule and budgets are met. There are many great time management solutions availble, from online solutions, desktop software, to the basic Excel Spreadsheet route but timeXchange has some interesting features that are worth taking a look at.

When setting up a new project, you can choose who gets reports. These reports get sent complete with your hours and tasks listed, making them easier to track and analyze data. timeXchange helps out with collecting and approving timesheets which can be then viewed and analyzed and data exported to other applications. Security is a big concern for timeXchange. Encrypted data and reporting are stored on secure servers, and only those with permissions can access it.

Like any new application, this one takes a while to get used to, and there is a ton to set up, but it seems like this could be a strong player in the time management arena. Other online time management applications are TaskAnyone, ProWorkflow, Tick, Zoho Projects and Basecamp.

source [eHub]

Microsoft Time Zone

Windows only: The free Microsoft Time Zone app displays the current time from multiple locations in the XP taskbar.

If you haven’t yet upgraded to Vista but you would like its multiple clocks feature, the not-as-pretty, but just-as-functional Time Zone’s for you. Microsoft Time Zone is a free download, and requires .NET 1.1 to run.

Download Microsoft Time Zone from here.

source [lifehacker]

Fix your LCD’s stuck pixels

JScreenFix is designed to fix your LCD’s stuck pixels by quickly switching red, green, and blue colors on your monitor.

JScreenFix makes this high-contrast pixel un-sticker available in as many ways as possible so you can use it on your computer, your mobile device, and your DVD player, depending on where your pixels need un-sticking. Keep in mind the difference between a dead pixel and a stuck pixel: A stuck pixel will generally be fixed at red, green, blue, or any combination of those three colors; if a pixel is dead, it shows up as black, and fixing it requires another method altogether. JScreenFix also claims to help fix burn-in on plasma screens.

source [lifehacker]

KBPublisher – open-source Knowledge Base software

At one time or another, every company I’ve ever worked for has said “we should really build a knowledge base on that topic”, or something to that effect. And inevitably they did, with good and not-so-good results. It’s too bad that I didn’t know about KBPublisher back then, that’s for sure. Some of the home-grown “solutions” were so bad that you’d be lucky to find any of the useful information that was surely in them.

KBPublisher is an open-source project to build a knowledge base, or FAQ content management system that can be used on any website. Here’s a quick list of features it offers:

• Unlimited Categories
• Glossary Terms
• Powerful WYSIWYG
• Instant Response
• Searching
• Add attachments
• Five different admin roles
• Protect categories
• Commenting / Rating / Send to friend
• Users can ask questions
• Related Articles
• RSS

The back end of KBPublisher can use either Linux, Unix or Windows, on Apache or IIS, but requires MySQL 4.0 or better and PHP 4.3 – 5.1.4.

source [downloadsquad]

Scrybe – Amazing online organizer

If the actual product is anything like the video on the home page (and on youtube), this will scoop up and slaughter the current set of online personal organization and tracking systems. Very well thought out, works offline, prints to a useable, portable format and works with firefox.

Scrybe video demo

source [digg]