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Latest Issue
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| Buyers' Guide to Music & Video Gadgets
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The Sims Carnival SnapCity Site: www.electronicarts.com.au/en-au/games/pc/sims/snapcity Licence: Trial, then $US20 Platform: Windows 2000/XP/Vista The Sims Carnival SnapCity is a fun puzzle game, combined with a city-building simulation game. There are two modes: Story and Creativity. In Story mode, you play through 25 levels, while in Creativity mode you're the city's mayor, and build your city in exactly the way you want it.
Furcadia 25 Site: www.furcadia.com Price: Free Platform: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista In Furcadia, animals talk and act like people. The game is a fantasy Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) in which you can explore the Furcadia world, play games, and attend events. You can even create your own world and open it to other players, as well as create your own music and art. The graphics are excellent.
Sudoku Expert 1.01 Site: ln.ua/~bolo1917 Licence: 7-day trial, then $US9.50 Platform: Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista Sudoku Expert is an excellent game for a beginning player, or a pro. You can solve puzzles from newspapers and magazines, as well as create new puzzles. Since you won't always be at your computer, you can print six puzzles in a booklet format to take with you. The program's Help system can give you hints if you're stuck.
Cactus Bruce and the Corporate Monkeys 2.7 Site: www.blueteagames.com Licence: 14-level trial, then $US20 Platform: Windows (all) Cactus Bruce and the Corporate Monkeys is a fun arcade game in which you're Pirate Cactus. You control a claw, and can grab anything in the environment, which changes the game. There's a cute storyline, and good graphics and music, with over 100 levels to keep you playing for hours.
Navy Field: Resurrection of the Steel Fleet 1.204 Site: www.navyfield.com Price: Free Platform: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista Navy Field: Resurrection of the Steel Fleet is a fantastic multi-player online game which is based on real naval battles of World War Two. In the game, you construct ships, deploy armaments, and set your sailors tasks to accomplish. With 95 different ships and 25 kinds of sailors, your success in this game is up to you.
Jigsaws Galore 6.1 Site: www.dgray.com/download.htm Licence: 30-day trial; register for $US25 Platform: Windows (all) With Jigsaws Galore, you'll never run out of puzzles to solve. You can even create your own jigsaws using your own photos. The game is suitable for children and adults. For small children, set the number of pieces to nine, and the type of puzzle to Wood, to make a great jigsaw for a child. Adults can create huge jigsaws, with up to 64,000 pieces.
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Dream Aquarium Screensaver 1.14 Site: www.dreamaquarium.com/download.html Licence: Trial with two species of fish; full $US20 Platform: Windows XP/Vista; Mac A truly magical screensaver, Dream Aquarium Screensaver features a freshwater aquarium with gorgeous fish and lush plants. The fish eat food, chase each other and behave in a completely realistic way. In the trial version, there are just two fish species; when you register for the full version, the program has 100 different species of fish.
Aurora Clock screensaver 2.4 Site: www.clock-desktop.com/aurora_clock.shtml Price: Free Platform: Windows (all) Aurora Clock screensaver is, as the name suggests, a clock screensaver. It displays a clock with mysteriously changing colours. This screensaver is not just a lot of fun, it’s practical too.
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Internet Download Manager 5.12 build 8 Site: www.internetdownloadmanager.com Licence: 30-day trial, then $US25 Platform: Windows (all) Internet Download Manager manages your downloads. Not only does it increase download speeds by up to five times; it also schedules downloads and resumes interrupted downloads. It will even download complete sites, or selected items on sites. The program integrates with all popular browsers so that your downloads are handled automatically, and sent to specific folders.
Acoo Browser 1.80 build 988 Site: www.acoobrowser.com/download.php Price: Free Platform: Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista Although the Acoo Browser is new, it's already developing a following because it's fast: you can surf multiple Web sites within a single browser window. It blocks pop-ups and other annoying ads, and the included cleaner protects your privacy by removing your history, cookies and other browsing traces. One of its handiest features is the ability to save opened sites as a group.
Hydra 1.0.6 Site: hydrabrowser.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=31 Price: Free Platform: Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista, Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Hydra calls itself a browser companion – it's not meant to replace your primary browser. It's free, so it's worth trying because it might have a couple of features you can use. It includes a built-in translator and RSS feed reader, as well as links to many sites in top Web categories.
Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 Site: www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird Price: Free Platform: Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista This latest version of the Mozilla Thunderbird email program focuses on organisation, and has been enhanced with new folder views, message tagging and an improved search feature. The program's security is excellent; you're warned about phishing attempts, and the junk email filter has been updated. As with Firefox, you can customise Thunderbird with hundreds of add-ons.
WebcamMax 4.2.5.6 Site: www.webcammax.com Licence: 30-day trial; then $US30 Platform: Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista WebcamMax lets you use your Web cam with popular programs like AIM, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, Skype and CamFrog, so you can add videos, screen pictures and other effects. You can share your Web cam in 16 programs, switch between virtual and real Web cam, and create your own effects.
Opera 9.26 Site: www.opera.com Price:Â Free Platform: Windows (all) Although the Firefox browser has stolen the limelight, consider giving the speedy little Opera browser a try. It's now completely free, and you can customise it in numerous ways. Opera includes many useful and unique features like Free Dial, so you can load your favourite Web sites quickly, and you can load widgets to perform everyday tasks and have fun.
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UltraExplorer 1.5.0.3 Site: www.mustangpeak.net Price: Free Platform: Windows 2000/XP UltraExplorer is a powerful and highly customisable file manager. Although the program includes 17 toolbars, you can display or hide any of them as you wish. One of the program's most useful features is the Drop Stack, which lets you store files until you're ready to copy, print, or move them to another destination.
Quicknote 5.4 Site: jcmb.jens-m.de Price: Free Platform: Windows (all) Quicknote is a simple, useful scratchpad which allows you to create as many notes as you need. If you want to be reminded of something, just set a note's alarm. The program opens text files just like any text editor. The interface is unusual, so watch the demonstration videos on the developer's site to get the most from Quicknote.
Business Functions 1.48b Site: www.businessfunctions.com Price: Free Platform: Windows (all); Microsoft Excel Business Functions is a Microsoft Excel add-in, which has 500 different functions for business planning. You can use it to create business plans, budgets and cash flow projections. The program comes with free Excel templates for accounting and real estate businesses, as well as for loans.
Quick Slide Show 2.31 Site: www.narand.com Licence: 7-day trial, then $US40 Platform: Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista Quick Slide Show creates slide shows and presentations. The program is an excellent tool for teachers, business people and Web developers. Teachers can create lessons and interactive teaching materials. Business people will like Quick Slide Show, because you can create standalone presentations which don't require PowerPoint to run. For the Web, Quick Slide Show creates easy and small Flash movies.
FastStone Image Viewer 3.5 Site: www.faststone.org/FSViewerDownload.htm Price: Free Platform: Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista Want a fast, free way to manage your images? Give FastStone Image Viewer a try. The program not only allows you to browse and view images; you can edit and manage them as well. It supports all popular image and photo formats, and allows you to view images side by side, removing those you don't want to keep. You can even print configurable professional quality contact sheets, to save on ink and paper.
Backup expro - 0.1.2 Site: www.cooltoolsonline.co.uk/backupexpro.html Price: Free Platform: Windows XP/Vista Backup expro is a useful free backup program, which will back up any selection of files and folders. These selections are called profiles, and you can create as many profiles as you need. Backup expro includes a scheduler, for daily, weekly or monthly backups. Your backups can be full – that is, all files in the selection are backed up, or incremental, in which only files that have changed are backed up.
Coollector 2.05 Site: www.coollector.com Price: Free Platform: Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista Coollector is a movie database, already stocked with data on thousands of movies, so you don't have to enter any information yourself. You can rate the movies you've seen and own, and create a wish list of movies. There's a shopping feature with the program, so you can order movies, but you can disable this feature if you don't use it.
Kantaris Media Player 0.3.4 Site: www.kantaris.org Price: Free Platform: Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista If you're not happy with your current media player, give Kantaris Media Player a try. It's based on the VLC Media Player, so it plays all your music and videos, as well as CDs and DVDs. While you're playing music, the player can display visualisations.
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GenoPro 2007 2.0.1.4 Site: www.genopro.com    Licence: 14-day trial, then $US49 Platform: Windows (all) GenoPro is a powerful graphical database tool to help you to draw full-featured family trees. The program is very easy to use, and you can enter as much detail as you wish – up to a million individuals per file. You can also add pictures and publish your family tree on the Web. Legacy Family Tree 5.0 Site: www.legacyfamilytree.com/DownloadLegacy.asp Price: Free Platform: Windows (all) Although it's free, Legacy Family Tree is a powerful family tree program which enables you to store all your genealogical data in one place. With over 100 reports available, you can share your data easily. If you're new to genealogy, Legacy Family Tree's research assistant guides your research and your projects, creating a To Do list of suggested tasks as you progress. Family Tree Builder 1 build 536 Site: www.myheritage.com/genealogy Price: Free Platform: Windows (all) Family Tree Builder is a free genealogy program which is powerful, but nevertheless very easy to use – you can get started building your family tree at once even if you're a complete novice. Wizards lead you through all the tasks involved of adding family members, photos and documents. If you're a genealogy expert, you'll love the program's advanced features. Genbox Family History 3.7.1 Site: www.genbox.com Licence: 30-day trial, then $US30 Platform: Windows (all) Genbox Family History is a comprehensive family tree database which produces professional reports and charts. Not only is it a research tool and data analyser; it’s also a source documentation repository. This is a powerful program with a full-featured research system, to make finding ancestors easy. You can add source citations to people, places and events to create a complete family tree. Family Tree Legends 4.23 Site: www.familytreelegends.com/downloads Price: Free Platform: Windows (all) Even if you have no genealogical experience at all, Family Tree Legends makes it easy to begin collecting and displaying family history information. The program makes it easy to share information too, on CDs and DVDs, so that everyone can get involved. With great reports and fan charts, as well as scrapbook printing, Family Tree Legends is a great tool.
GreatFamily 2.2.2 Site: www.greatprogs.com/downloads.html Licence: 30-day trial, then $US30 Platform: Windows (all) GreatFamily is ultra-simple family tree software, which generates a graphical family tree. When you zoom out, you can see your entire family tree on one screen; zoom in, and you can pan in any direction. Click on a name, and you can see the person's complete details in the program's browser. Most operations can be performed with a right-click on the program's canvas. Ancestral Quest 12.00.13 Site: www.ancestralquestonline.com/updates/demo.asp Licence: 40-record trial, with limitations; full $30 Platform: Windows 2000/XP/Vista Although it's easy to get started with Ancestral Quest, this program is for the power user. It includes all the features you need, and fun features like scrapbooking too. You can create a great variety of charts, and the program links to online databases to make researching easy. You can store people and place names in Unicode, to get around language challenges, although language translation capabilities are built into the program. Brother's Keeper 6.2.65 Site: www.bkwin.org/version6.htm Licence: Trial with some features disabled, full $45 Platform: Windows (all) Brother's Keeper is a full-featured genealogy program which allows you to print 25 different varieties of charts and reports, including pedigree and descendant charts. In addition to printing charts, you can create HTML and PDF files. It will create calendars, and can import and export GEDCOM files. The program's most useful feature is that it will run in ten different languages.
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Google desktop Site: desktop.google.com Price: Free Platform: Mac Google Desktop makes searching your computer as easy as searching the web with Google. It's a desktop search application that provides full text search over your email, files, music, photos, chats, Gmail, web pages that you've viewed, and more. By making your computer searchable, Desktop puts your information easily within your reach and frees you from having to manually organise your files, emails and bookmarks. Safari AdBlock 0.3.2 Site: safariadblock.sourceforge.net Price: Free Platform: Mac OS X 10.5 Safari AdBlock blocks ads in Safari. It is free of charge and under the GPL licence. Safari AdBlock is meant to be extremely simple to use: there is nothing to configure, no filter list to manage, no regular expression, it just works out of the box!
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Deep Trouble 2 2.0 Site: www.codeblender.com/products/deeptrouble2/deeptrouble2.php Licence: Free demo version, full version $US25 Platform: Mac OS X 10.2.8 The year is 2268. After more than 100 years the planet Earth has slowly recovered from the previous ecological disaster and the unexpected invasion from an unknown alien race. DeepTrouble 2 features 11 levels with gorgeous and detailed graphics made possible by the use of OpenGL's vertex and fragment shaders. Bump mapping, dynamic shadows and other advanced techniques add to the highly detailed graphics. OpenAL is being used to bring out great sound effects that will immerse you into the game together with the suspenseful music. Excalibur: Morgana's Revenge 3.0 Site: excaliburworld.com/emr/emr3/index.html Licence: Freeware Platform: Mac OS X 10.2 EMR 3.0 is a first-person action adventure game, featuring an epic and in-depth story line. As a Federation Marine resting after your last mission, you start aboard the exploration class Starship Kronos where you learn that your real mission has yet to begin. You are re-acquainted with the AI Merlin, who introduces you to Kronos time traveling technology, and reveals your new mission: to save mankind from the clutches of Morgana and her minions. Through untamed raptor-infested jungles, castle arenas, and war-torn streets of the future, you will wield weapons from all time periods - including the Sword of Power, Excalibur - in an effort to thwart the diabolical plot that unfolds.
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iFamily for Tiger Site:www.ifamilyfortiger.com Licence: Free demo, live version $US30 Platform: OSX 10.5 (Leopard), 10.4 (Tiger) iFamily for Tiger is a genealogy application for people who think differently. Whereas other genealogy software tends to emphasize the family unit, this software's focus is on each individual person. This distinction is subtle and is a feature of iFamily for Tiger. In iFamily for Tiger you can see at a glance whether an individual has more than 2 parents or more than 1 spouse. Parent-child relationships may be natural (the default), step, adopted or foster relationships. ohmiGene 1.60.02 Site: ohmi.celeonet.fr/ohmiGene/indexEN.html Licence: Lite version free, Plus version $US40 Platform: Mac ohmiGene is a complete program for the management of your genealogical data. It is possible to create working lists, according to a multitude of criteria, with ease or to list ancestors, descentants or close parents of a person. These lists can handled for tasks in series (marks, sources, etc.), printed or exported in various formats: gedcom, normal tabulated text, etc.
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Download Queue 1.2.1 Site: www.olivetoast.com/DownloadQueue Licence: Shareware, $US15 Platform: Mac OS X 10.4 Download Queue is a download manager. It supports the HTTP, HTTPS and FTP protocols including full resume and authentication support. Downloads can be controlled manually or scheduled to run automatically at a chosen time every day or just once at a particular time and date. Optional Safari and Firefox extensions add a Download Queue menu item to the browser's context menu, providing seamless integration with your browser.
Bookit 3.7.4 Site: www.everydaysoftware.net/bookit Licence: Free demo, purchase $US12 Platform: Mac OS 10.3.9 With all the browsers available for the Mac OS keeping your bookmarks organised can become a real problem. But with Bookit keeping your browsers' bookmarks synchronised is quick and easy. Bookit compares the bookmarks you have and then lets you synchronise the bookmarks that are not in all of your browsers. Finally, Bookit creates identical bookmark files for each browser. If you use more than one browser regularly, give Bookit a try, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.
CosmoPod 2.1 Site: mac.sixfiles.com/dbase/files/jean-matthieu-cosmopod.html Licence: Shareware, $US6.90 Platform: Mac OS X 10.5 CosmoPod is an add-on to Apple Safari that makes downloading and converting Flash (FLV), DivX, WMV and Real Media videos to your Mac / iPod a one-click operation. CosmoPod is almost universal. It will work on most sites broadcasting video content. It lounges in Safari's address bar and activates whenever a video is detected on the Web site you're surfing. In a single click, the video is downloaded and converted to a friendly video format, and added to your iTunes Library.You can also drag and drop files already saved on your computer to CosmoPod to convert them automatically.
Opera 9.26 Site: www.opera.com Price: Free Platform: Mac Although the Firefox browser has stolen the limelight, consider giving the speedy little Opera browser a try. It's now completely free, and you can customise it in numerous ways. Opera includes many useful and unique features like Free Dial, so you can load your favourite Web sites quickly, and you can load widgets to perform everyday tasks and have fun.
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Disk Order 3.0 Site: likemac.ru/english Licence: Shareware, $US23 Platform: Mac OS X 10.3 Disk Order is a utility that gives users the ability to manage files on their Macs just the same way as in Finder but without any need to open many windows for different folders. Having two file lists (panels) hosted in one window, the user can easily open one folder on left panel and another one on right panel and perform any file operation between them. For example copy some files from one to another or compare them for same file names. All this Disk Order presents in usual for Mac users Aqua interface with full support of Drag-n-Drop technology. AbiWord 2.4.5 Site: www.abiword.com Licence: Freeware Platform: Mac OS X 10.2 What use is a Word Processor when you can't share your documents with your friends? AbiWord is able to read and write all industry standard document types, such as OpenOffice.org documents, Microsoft Word documents, WordPerfect documents, Rich Text Format documents, HTML web pages and many more. AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word. It is suitable for typing papers, letters, reports, memos, and so forth. AbiWord is unique among word processors in its drive to become a fully cross-platform word processor. iBackup 6.3 Site: www.grapefruit.ch/iBackup Licence: Freeware Platform: Mac OS X 10.3.9 iBackup is a simple-to-use backup/restore utility for scheduled backups of files, folders, applications and your system preferences like the dock, deskop picture, time settings, firewall, bluetooth and system applications like AddressBook, Mail, Stickies, iChat, iTunes and more. You can edit these preferences settings and add your own. PhotoPresenter 3.3 Site: www.arizona-software.ch/photopresenter Licence: Shareware, $US8 Platform: Mac OS X 10.4 Present quickly and easily all your pictures and movies with PhotoPresenter. Choose your preferred slideshow style among several amazing themes and view any image and movie - either from your iPhoto library or from anywhere else, such as from a CD.
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