Review - VLC v1.1.5

Do you find yourself installing more and more CODECs to simply play a video file you have been sent or that you've just downloaded from the web?  Need another program to find a needed CODEC and hopefully guide you to the right website to get it from?

In comes VLC (videoLAN client), a video player that comes with many popular CODECs included so that you can start watching your videos and movies right away.  It has good performance and some nice features too.  It even comes with built-in streaming support, conversion, subtitle support, DVD playing, simple bookmarking to resume playback where you left off, and even a quite different setting to replace your desktop wallpaper with a video.

Worth checking out to save yourself trouble later on, to save yourself repetitive calls for help by less computer savvy family and friends or even to use as a multimedia player with its audio file support.

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URL: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

 

Review - Chromium v10.0.626.0

What makes a good browser?  Is it increased security?  Really good performance?  Regular updates and bug fixes?  What if I told you that Chromium is all this and more?

Now here is a browser with very nice startup time and a welcomed different look to it.  It does away with extra menus and tons of buttons that are always in the way even if you rarely ever use them.  They've even thought of using the title bars wasted screen space to place the browsers tabs.  No wasted screen real estate.  You can't customize it as much as Firefox, and the extensions (add-ons) are more limited, but I for one have gotten used to it quite quickly.  I prefer safety and security to flashy browser changes and these days I'd rather have a program that just works out of the box instead of having to tweak it over and over to get it just right.

The browser is more memory-intensive than others since it runs each extension and every website tab in its own process, separate from the others so that if one crashes it does not take down the entire browser or mess with other websites.

You've surely heard of google chrome by now.  Well chromium is what it the former browser is based on.  Think of it as chrome but without the privacy concerns.  Both browsers are known for their great JavaScript and website performance, and their extensions run smoothly too, being made with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

In conclusion, on modern computers that come with a minimum of 2 to 4 gigs of RAM and fast processors, who can't afford some extra security and advanced features?

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URL: http://build.chromium.org/f/chromium/continuous/win/LATEST/

Review - foobar2000 v1.1.1

Staring back with Windows 98 I used to be a diehard winamp user.  I loved firing it up into windowshade mode and listening to some MP3s and streaming radio online.

In later years however I had sadly noticed it was getting slower, more resource intensive and bloated.  It started including random junk that I did not want nor need.  This was something that I couldn't accept in a simple program used to just play some music.

I had started to read more and more about another player rising in popularity named foobar2000 and decided to give it a try.  It not only had a basic look to it (which I admit took me a while to get used to) but was also made by a former winamp programmer who left the former project after the winamp 3 flop.

I noticed how foobar2000 came installed with many popular formats support built right in, but would also startup quite quickly and was really light on RAM (using up 8 megs instead of winamp 5s 32 megs on startup without any music loaded and playing).  You can also use some handy extensions and heavily customize it for your needs if you'd like.

From basic users to the more advanced music fans, I recommend checking out this great audio player.

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URL: http://www.foobar2000.org/

Review - filehippo.com

I remember just a few years ago waiting impatiently for the programs that I would use to include update-checking to save me from having to track down all their websites (some long gone, others moved causing 404s) just to see if a never version had come out.

Later on many if not most of the programs on my hard drive had updating included, but having to run each one, one at a time, was still rather tedious.

Many mass-updating websites have come and gone, but one still remains: filehippo.  Now this website hosts some great freeware, along with some open-source and trialware programs.  What more, it would be hard to miss an update since the site offers many ways to notify you: A news feed via RSS, updates via twitter and even a very nice update-checker that will scan certain folders on your hard drive and show you any available updates that you can then read up about on filehippos website and download right away.

Last point for this review is that software on a computer should always be kept up to date.  You not only get new features here and there, but you also get bug fixes and therefore increased security and productivity.  Newer versions are sometimes not better however, there may be features that you would use that have been removed.  You could either write the programmers to ask them to include them once again, you could find a new program that does what you'd want it to, or you could download a earlier version of the one you now use which is also available on filehippo.com.

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URL: http://www.filehippo.com/

Happy New Year

Wishing you all a happy 2011 with much happiness and good health.

 

Review - dsBudget v2.0.21a

dsBudget is an open-source program that I discovered recently, and so far I am seriously impressed.

What comes to mind when you think of budgeting software?  That it is complicated?  That you have to enter tons of information just to get started?  That the software must cost enough to ironically bust the budget that you are trying to get under control?  Well in this case all of those worries can be put aside.

Starting off with just a slight learning curve, it will be mere minutes before you are setting up incomes, deductions and other expenses with numbers and colors to represent them in pie charts, progress bars and graphs.  Entering an expense or an income will updates all graphs instantly and lets you know how much allocated money you have left in each category.

If you would like software that automatically imports your bank statements and enters all the information for you, you'll have to look elsewhere.  The whole point of this simple program is to make you enter it yourself so that you can understand where your money is going in the first place.  It will teach you and you will learn.  You will see where you have to watch what you spend and you will be thankful of having done the work yourself when you check your bank account and see that you have enough money left to be able to save up for something special.

dsBudget requires the Java runtime environment to run and uses your default browser as its interface.  It runs itself as a local server so you do not need an active Internet connection to use it.

Now go and get that budget under control!

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URL: http://sites.google.com/site/dsbudgethome/

Review - PalaceChat v4.0.923

Quite a few years back (heck, I'd say it was around '97 or '98), I got my first glimpse of a 2D graphical chat program called The Palace at a local cyber cafe.

Now we're talking about a time when IRC was still very popular and anyone with a net connection had ICQ installed, so you can understand why a 2D chat was such a big deal.  Seeing little pictures as your avatar moving around from one crowded room to the next was a sure way to meet new people and have a lot of fun doing so too!

Nowadays though, that's nothing new and the idea has been done to death.  Computers are faster and more powerful, as are our net connections, allowing us to have streaming audio, video and smooth 3D too.  But for those of us who still yearn for the simpler things now and then, I am glad to say that The Palace is still around.  Sure, it's nowhere near as popular and full of users as it used to be, but times change.

The best part however is that there are still some people out there working on updated client programs to chat in.  My client of choice is PalaceChat.  Here are a few reasons why:

• You can still use your favorite old avatars along with new 32bit color images (and much larger sizes, too!).
• You can import those old avatars from the original Palace client easily.
• Multiple connections to different servers at the same time displayed as tabs.
• Much larger rooms and background images to nicely fill your screen.
• Update checking on startup so you're never left behind.
• Vastly improved avatar creation and editing.
• Very nice colored rich text log window to keep up with the chat.
• You can even export your current avatar as a PNG image for use elsewhere.
• Improved scripting, too.
• Does not peg your CPU usage at 100% like the original Palace client did.

So there you have it.  I invite you to try it out; after all it's free so there's nothing to lose.  If you have any suggestions or bugs to report, you can leave a post about it in their forums.  Reporting a little error earlier today got me a reply from the creator of PalaceChat himself in under an hour.

Happy chatting!

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URL: http://www.pchat.org/

So many apps to review...

So little time.

A new beginning...

Hello world! ;)