SheepTech » freeware

Chrometa Time Tracking Software Goes Free

Vincent — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:39:40 +0000

Chrometa is a time tracking software for Windows that will possibly eliminate the question “Where did my time go?“. Once installed, Chrometa will track the amount of time you have spent on any application in a very detailed manner. When you’re on a browser for example, Chrometa will track the time you have spent on individual web pages.

A copy of Chrometa used to be cost $99, but you can now get yourself a license key for free by just providing your email address (the key will be sent to your email). The license key will only work on the desktop version though, the web app version starts from $19 to $99.

Link: Request License Key | Download Chrometa 2.0

InPaint: Automagically Remove Object from Photos (free)

Vincent — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 13:15:28 +0000

Want to remove an object from a photo but don’t have the necessary photoshop skills?

InPaint is a software that does exactly that, with minimal effort on your part. Simply crop the object you want to remove from a photo and click the Run button. InPaint will use its surrounding background to fill in the hole left by the removed object.

I’ve used a small giraffe photo as a demo:

It obviously will not work on photos with complicated background. InPaint normally cost $40 a pop, which is pretty steep for a software with just one functionality.

You can however get a copy of InPaint 2.4 for free by subscribing Software-Butler’s newsletter. After subscribing, you will receive a license key to activate your InPaint.

[Download InPaint 2.4]

Free: Returnil System Safe Pro for 1 Year

Vincent — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 14:10:34 +0000

Your computer might have an antivirus installed, but disaster can still strike at the least expected time, especially when you are sharing it with someone less tech-savvy.

Returnil System Safe Pro is an antivirus famed for its system restore feature. With it, you can be assured that everything will be fine no matter how harmful the websites you are visiting or the new software you are installing, because everything can be rolled back by just a reboot.

You can learn more about Returnil on PCMag.

A 1-year subscription of Returnil System Safe Pro would normally cost $39.95, but it’s going free this Christmas. Just fill in your particulars in this product giveaway page and you will be on your way.

Merry Christmas

Free Download: McAfee Internet Security

Vincent — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 08:16:22 +0000

McAfee is back again with its free antivirus promotion, this time with a 6 months free subscription of McAfee Internet Security 2010 which acts as an antivirus, anti-spyware, firewall, identity protection, anti-spam, anti-phishing and parental controls.

A 1-year subscription of McAfee Internet Security would normally cost $48.99, so this would be around $24.50 worth of free subscription.

How to claim your 6 months free McAfee Internet Security Subscription:

Go to this promotional page
Create a McAfee account with a valid email address
Activate your McAfee account by clicking on the link in the confirmation email
Checkout Internet Security (6-month subscription) at the price of $0.00
Download your complimentary 6-month subscription

This is a time limited offer, so grab your free subscription while you can.

Five (Arguably) Most Useful Freewares

Vincent — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:24:11 +0000

This is a guest post by Maria Rainier.

Who says nothing in life is free? Not all of us have the money to blow on McAfee and Kasperskey for basic anti-virus software, ridiculous long-distance phone bills, and the like. Here are some basic freeware options to keep your money where it belongs—in your account.

Avast Free Anti-Virus

The multiple shields of Avast provide premium safety for your computer and web-browsing for free. The newest version, Avast Free 5 (previously the Home Edition), according to CNET, protects the computer with manifold defenses: antivirus, antispyware, behavioral shield, and adjustable mail and file system shields that join pre-existing behavior, network, instant messaging, peer-to-peer, and Web shields.

Its independent third-party testing has been able to compete with bigger (more expensive) names like Symantec and Microsoft.

Most noticeably, Avast Free 5 has had a makeover. It’s now got a smooth, more manageable UI as opposed to its previous skinnable (albeit confusing) look. Otherwise new to Avast is the capability to silence the vocal announcements upon startup that, despite daily repetition, used to scare the pants off of me. An “intelligent scanner” looks at changed files after establishing a standard.

Skype

Everyone knows about Skype these days, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth mentioning. Of late, its added features include call transferring, Skype Access for Wi-Fi hotspots, accessibility provisions, birthday alerts, and, according to CNET, the function to send one Skype user’s contact to another.

High- def video calls, with the help of the user’s HD Webcam, is also in the works, although public chats are nowhere to be seen and instant messaging remains a little rough, as remains the picture quality.

Skye is also experimenting (improving, I hope) with screen sharing, which starts a video call and broadcasts a recording of (part of or all of) your screen to another viewer. It’s no replacement for collaborative Web conferencing, since you can’t see both the original caller and his or her desktop andonly one viewer can see the broadcast at a time.

Still, you can’t fault Skype for revolutionizing long-distance calling: making international calls between two Skype users free, and between Skype users and landlines and cell phones significantly cheaper than regular rates.

Google Earth

This is another no-brainer, but you can’t deny that fiddling around with Google Earth isn’t just plain fun. Now, not only can you check out your hometown and that tree you fell out of when you were eight, you can also check out the Google Ocean in version 5. BBC and National Geographic have teamed up with Google Earth to allow you to explore the Titanic and other wrecks in 3D. NASA provides some data so we can take a gander at Mars.

Even if it might seem a little stalker-ish, you can still use Street View to see roads, houses, restaurants, and even crime statistics—these were useful things to see a few months ago when I was switching apartments. Just be sure to close all or at least most other windows when you’re prowling the streets. The program tends to take up a lot of memory, and we don’t want your computer overheating.

IrfanView

It’s not Photoshop, but it gets the job done better than Paint and won’t automatically lower the quality of your images. You can cut, crop, sharpen, blur, tweak with colors, and otherwise edit multiple media formats. You can even apply batch conversions and create panoramas. You can even open MP3, AVI, audio CD, and WMA with a plug-in. It’s not much to look at, but unless you’re a professional photographer wanting to sell your artwork, it works.

7-Zip

For those of us who have built our own computers or otherwise weren’t given WinZip, 7-Zip is free and can shrink files into formats like ZIP, TAR, GZ, and its own 7z, which can be 40% smaller than their ZIP counterparts. Admittedly, this compression can take longer and use quite a bit of memory, but if you’ve got to send out that e-mail, and that e-mail’s got to have those documents attached to it, it’s worth the wait. You can even password protect your archives. It’s marketed for developers and more advanced types, but casual users will be able to find their ways around the (overly?) simple UI.

Bio: Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education and performs research surrounding online degrees (OnlineDegrees.org). In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Install Multiple Freewares At Once, Effortlessly

Vincent — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 07:43:03 +0000

It can be a fun experience to buy a new computer, or to reformat your old PC so that it works like a new one, but having to reinstall all your favorite freewares is probably as meh as it sounds.

Introducing Ninite, a tool that helps you bulk install freewares of your choice without you downloading them one by one from their individual website, start the installer, clicking “Next”, read carefully to make sure you’re not trapped to install Ask Toolbar and to change your homepage and default search engine to Ask.com.

The list of freewares are very well covered (total of 78 apps), so chances of your favorite freeware not in the list is pretty slim. You can even suggest an app if you think it deserves to have a place in the list.

Once you are done selecting your freewares, download the installer, which upon launching, will download your freewares and install them on your behalf. The best part, in my opinion, is really the ability of Ninite to filter out all unwanted toolbars and other junks that normally comes with the installer of even the most famed freeware.

Just send a link to Ninite to your non-tech-savvy friend so that they wouldn’t get back to you asking you to get rid of that unwanted toolbar, or complaining Google is missing from his browser. Sweet isn’t it?

Ninite is also available for both Windows and Linux.

CleanHaven: Manipulate & Format Texts The Way You Want

Vincent — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 13:43:19 +0000

We all know how frustrating it is to work with forwarded emails, unprofessionally written articles, incompatible text document format and the likes. Such articles are a pain in the ass to clean, with weird symbols, random spaces, random uppercase lowercase etc throughout.

If you can relate to such scenario, CleanHaven is your savior. It is an all-in-one text cleaning tool with abilities ranging from case formatting to removal of excess spacings—from replacing word “A” with word “B” to removing duplicates.

It’s not possible to list out everything it can do, so it’s best if you hop over to CleanHaven’s homepage and watch the screencasts (bottom of the page). I’ve embedded part 1 of the video below, there are 7 parts in total all demo-ing different features.

Works on Windows, Mac and Linux. Now it would be nice if there’s a web app version of this.

Virtual Router: Connectify Alternative

Vincent — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 06:02:05 +0000

Connectify makes sharing of internet connection via Wi-Fi on Windows 7 easier than ever. But in case it’s not working properly on your machine, or you desire a simpler interface (as if Connectify is not simple enough), you may want to try Virtual Router.

How easy can it be? Just simply enter your desired SSID and password, click on “Start Virtual Router” and off you go.

After starting, your friends can connect to the Wi-Fi network and start going online using your internet connection. It works great at times, but at some other times, it’ll say “Virtual Router could not be started“, at least on my laptop. I still couldn’t figure it out yet.

Update: If both Connectify and Virtual Router refuse to work, try setting up an ad hoc network and share your connection via Wi-Fi without using any software.

Windows 7: Share Internet Connection via WiFi

Vincent — Sat, 01 May 2010 02:24:26 +0000

(Windows 7 only) This is especially helpful if you are subscribed to a 3G wireless broadband. You have internet connection basically wherever you go, and it makes total sense to share it with your other WiFi enabled devices, or even to your Facebook addict friends.

Sharing your internet connection via WiFi on Windows 7 is much easier than you probably think. No need of going through the control panel, setting up new connection etc. All you have to do is install this little application—Connectify.

After installing Connectify, you can make your Windows 7 laptop into a WiFi hotspot by entering a few parameters:

Name your WiFi hotspot
Select password
Select which internet connection you would like to share
Select Hotspot mode

The next thing you have to do is to hit the big “Start Hotspot” button and you are good to go!

Stop Connectify from launching on every Windows logon

By default, Connectify will launch itself everytime you start your PC. To disable this:

Go to Control Panel\System and Security\Administrative Tools and select System Configuration
Click on the Startup tab
Uncheck Connectify

Alternatively:

Go to Control Panel\System and Security\Administrative Tools and select Task Scheduler
Select Connectify
On the right sidebar, under Selected Item, click on Disable.

Save Google Maps for Offline Use

Vincent — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 05:37:30 +0000

Google Maps is no doubt one of the most used tool to find almost just any location or place on planet Earth. There is one problem though. You can only enjoy such convenience if you are connected to the internet. There is an option to print on Google Maps, but the limited map size and zoom level doesn’t make it any helpful.

Here’s a simple tool that can partly solve the problem, Google Map Saver. With it, you can save any part of Google Maps as an image to your local disk, at a zoom level and resolution of your choice. Being able to select the zoom level lets you dictate how detailed you want your map to be.

If you are wondering how big the map can be — it can go, this big.

Video demo:

Usage idea – print a large map pointing to your house, frame it and hang it in your room. Geekiness +10 overnight.

No installation required. Just download and start the app. After starting it, click on the “About” on the right top corner and click “Agree”. Otherwise there would be an ugly watermark on your saved maps.

Download: Google Map Saver