Download Batman The Dark Knight Rises Theme for Windows 7 Free

Download Batman The Dark Knight Rises Theme for Windows 7 Free

Batman The Dark Knight Rises Theme is a desktop theme for Windows 7 PCs.

Serious Batman fans have been waiting for The Dark Knight Rises for quite some time. Now the date is nearing for the movie to be released in theaters in the US and worldwide. Up the excitement and get ready for this epic cinematic conclusion with Batman The Dark Knight Rises Theme.

Batman The Dark Knight Rises Theme includes six high quality images from the upcoming movie to whet your appetite for all things Batman. As an added plus, the images will rotate every 30 minutes to keep your desktop fresh.

Unfortunately, this is otherwise a pretty simple theme. It doesn't include sound effects or customized desktop icons, which might disappoint some users.

Batman The Dark Knight Rises Theme is a basic theme, but there's no denying the high quality of the wallpaper images that hardcore Batman fans will appreciate.

Review last updated: 11/07/12

Pros

• Includes 6 great quality images
• Option to rotate images every 30 minutes

Cons

• Doesn't include customized icons

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Download FlipToast 1.0.5 Free

Download FlipToast 1.0.5 Free

FlipToast is an elegant AIR-based desktop client for Facebook with which you can easily keep track of all notifications, wall posts, private messages, shared links and more.

The client?s interface is actually a toolbar that sits on one side of your screen and which you can hide at any time. From there you can access your friends? activity on Facebook, check private messages, update your status and even use the Facebook chat. One feature that we especially liked was the ability to upload photos to Facebook just by dragging and dropping them on the FlipToast interface.

FlipToast also lets you write on your friends? walls without having to visit their individual Facebook profiles and displays desktop notices for each new item added to your newsfeed. This last feature however seems to need a bit of development, as we kept on receiving notices for the same events over and over again.

Despite this minor flaw, FlipToast is still one of the most eye-catching, easy-to-use desktop Facebook clients we?ve tried.

Keep track of your Facebook friends and events from the comfort of your Windows desktop with FlipToast.

Pros

• Perfect integration of Facebook with your desktop
• Nicely designed, unobtrusive toolbar
• Share pictures with a simple drag-and-drop

Cons

• Notifications repeat without apparent reason

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Download Ace of Spades 0.75 Beta Free

Download Ace of Spades 0.75 Beta Free

Ace of Spades combines Minecraft-style gameplay with team death-match online multiplayer competition. Join or create a server, choose the green or red team and get fighting!

Work in progress

Still under development, Ace of Spades really does look a lot like Minecraft, with its pixellated blocky style. But the team combat gives it a very different feel. Building and digging in Ace of Spades is more about making walls and trenches for the battle. The newbie guide even warns you not to be too creative, as your 'buildings will be destroyed'!

Gameplay

There are three guns: a rifle, machine gun and shot gun. You area also equipped with grenades and a spade for digging. You can talk to your team mates in secret to coordinate tactics. Despite the simplistic shooting and graphics, the gameplay is really satisfying. Digging and building adds an interesting dynamic to the game, and some of the servers have really well-designed levels to battle over.

Getting started

Ace of Spades does have its problems. Changing your player name is awkward, and battles can seemingly go on without end. However, these issues will no doubt be ironed out as the game develops. Where Ace of Spades isn't very user friendly, there is at least an extensive Wiki where you can find answers, as well as the newbie guide.

Ace of Spades is a fun release in what is becoming 'the Minecraft genre'. It's free to play, so get involved!

Review last updated: 28/06/12

Pros

• Big worlds to fight in
• Freedom to create your own battlefields
• Up to 32 players
• Balanced gameplay between tactics and action
• Updated regularly

Cons

• Camera is sometimes annoying
• No proper game interface

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Download Sylpheed 3.2 Free

Download Sylpheed 3.2 Free

Sylpheed is an email client and news reader based on GTK+ GUI toolkit. It's full of features designed to help you get more from your messages and improve the speed at which you receive and process news feeds.

Although it's designed for Unix systems, it also works on Windows although the GUI is not exactly what you might expect from an e-mail client. It's very no thrills with few graphical attractions but as you would expect from a program designed for Unix platforms, it's very secure and functional. The program is also remarkably well-organized, lightweight and supports just about every e-mail protocol you'll ever need. It's also designed for those that need maximum security because it supports not only the standard SSL protocol but also GnuPG and TLSv1.

In addition, it comes with more standard functions you would expect such as a powerful filtering and search tool, junk mail control and external commander that allows you to do away with the mouse for a while. It doesn't seem to allow you to retrieve mail from other POP3 accounts though although there is an extensive forum that no doubt, allows you to do this.

A very secure and highly professional e-mail client that doesn't make it easy for beginners but will certainly please those that need high security and work across platforms.

Recent changes

• New features
  
• Each attachments on the message view now have graphical label and popup menu
  
• The UI for Attachments tab was changed to save the space. Users now also can do 'Save all' without switching the view
  
• The 'show_attach_tab' option (without UI), which reverts the attachments interface to the old one, was added
  
• Multiple keywords search of the quick search was implemented
  
• The context menu of the folder view and the summary view can be popped up using Menu key or Shift+F10
  
• Win32: IPv6 support was enabled again
  
• Win32: SylFilter is now also included in the installer. The default junk commands were also changed to sylfilter
  
• Win32: an option to play sound when new messages arrive was added
  
• Win32: The file selector now follows Windows shortcut (.lnk)
  

Review last updated: 02/07/12

Pros

• Works across platforms
• Very secure

Cons

• Hard to work out for Windows users

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Download Hue and Cry 1.64 Free

Download Hue and Cry 1.64 Free

Hue and Cry is a plugin for Photoshop that lets you create funky colored stand-alone effects or regions of color in your digital photos.

Photoshop is an incredibly powerful and popular graphic design tool. Plugins like Hue and Cry only serve to enhance your design experience.

From Flaming Pear Software, developers of other plugins like Flexify and LunarCell, Hue and Cry gives you a lot of different options to explore your creativity.

With Hue and Cry you can create unique and sometimes quirky regions of color. These look great on their own since they can be pretty abstract, although those with some graphic design chops might be able to figure out how to incorporate these regions into digital photos as well.

From imagery that's vivid to pallid, structured to diffuse, the possibilities for unique designs are virtually endless with Hue and Cry.

Hue and Cry is a fun way to create abstract regions of color in Photoshop.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Virtually endless design options
• Includes a variety of color options

Cons

• Tricky to install

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Download Polyglot 3000 3.67 Free

Download Polyglot 3000 3.67 Free

Have you ever been faced by a situation where you've received some text in a strange language but you can't identify what it is? Polyglot 3000 can help you with that.

Polyglot 3000 (despite sounding like some kind of wall filler!) is a language recognition package which recognizes more than 400 languages. Simply paste in the text that you need identifying and Polyglot 3000 will immediately throw up suggestions as to what it could be. Polyglot 3000 is lightning fast at detecting the language of the text and it also gives you an estimate of how accurate the results are (which is usually 100% although if the language shares similar words with another language, it may be slightly lower). As far as customization goes, Polyglot 3000's very limited though with the only real option being that of setting it to check for only popular languages. However, with so many languages in use over the internet, this program is an excellent starting point for anyone trying to identify the origin of a blog language or website that they don't understand.

If you're just looking for a one stop, simple way to identify the language of some mysterious text, Polyglot 3000 will do it in a flash but note that it doesn't perform any kind of translation.

Pros

• Can identify languages instantly
• Over 40 languages in database

Cons

• Doesn't offer many customization options

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Download TagScanner Portable 5.1.620 Free

Download TagScanner Portable 5.1.620 Free

Big digital music collections often mean lots of badly named files. If you want to change the tags for an audio file- a music files meta data - doing it one by one can be a bind. TagScanner Portable is a free application that is designed to get your files quickly and correctly tagged with minimal effort.

If you only use MP3 files and iTunes, the tag editor in that program is absolutely fine. However, if you use lossless formats, or any not supported by iTunes, TagScanner Portable will be really useful.

There are a few ways to edit your tags. You can choose the type of tag for a start, and retrieve data from four online sources. There are Amazon, Discogs, Tracktype.org and FreeDB, meaning TagScanner Portable will find info for pretty much any musical release you want. You can use these to auto tag your files, or you can group edit files, adding album titles, year of release, album covers and even lyrics.

TagScanner Portable can also export your files lists in many formats, from suitable for Excel to m3u playlist files you can use in audio players. It really is a very comprehensive application, and it suffers a bit from complication. TagScanner Portable has an intimidatingly complex interface!

TagScanner Portable will satisfy all your tag-related needs as it's packed full of useful feature, but it's not the most intuitive application you'll find

Recent changes

• - New: Ability to shuffle list of files
  
• - Updated sorting logic for some columns of filelist
  
• - Fixed behaviour of some file dialogs on WinXP
  
• - Fixed problems with false error indication while saving ID3v1 tags
  
• - Updated playback engine

TagScanner Portable supports the following formats

Audio: MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Musepack, Monkey's Audio, FLAC, AAC, OptimFROG, SPEEX, WavePack, TrueAudio, WMA, MP4
Tags: ID3 1.0/1.1/2.2/2.3/2.4, APE v1/v2, Vorbis Comments, WMA Tags, MP4 Tags (iTunes)

Pros

• Tons of options
• Uses online databases
• Very flexible

Cons

• Complex interface

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Download Gravit 0.5.0 Free

Download Gravit 0.5.0 Free

Gravit is a simple, light weight application that allows you to simulate gravity.

If you're a fan of sandbox games or simulators, Gravit will satisfy your creativity and curiosity. Gravit is basically a sandbox for testing out how gravity works. You can adjust different aspects like mass and acceleration.

While it's cool to see your creations play out in a simulation, the app is extremely difficult to tweak. There's nothing within the program that you can actual use to adjust parameters. To adjust anything within the app, you have to open up a configuration file in a text editor. From there you can change the variables.

Gravit comes with a screensaver too, which makes for some interesting visualizations while you're away from your computer.

Overall, Gravit is fun and interesting only if you're willing to deal with an unintuitive interface for adjusting parameters.

Review last updated: 13/07/12

Pros

• Highly customizable
• Runs smoothly on old hardware

Cons

• Extremely complicated to tweak

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Download IDPhotoStudio 2.9.0.31 Free

Download IDPhotoStudio 2.9.0.31 Free

IDPhotoStudio is a program that will create and print passport sized photos for you in a snap.

Featuring only the bare necessities, IDPhotoStudio, will handle the job in seconds, allowing you to drag and drop your picture onto the interface. You can then select between three ID Photo sizes: US, Canada or France. Because you often need a certain number of photos printed out, IDPhotoStudio has a little drag meter to let you select how many photos you?ll need, from 1 to 15. Click on the print button to get the paper copies of your photo.

IDPhotoStudio is an original idea, and it?s good to see someone come up with a program to quickly print out ID photos. However, the application left us disappointed for a number of reasons. First of all, it doesn?t respect the aspect ratio of photos, so if you drag a large image there?s a risk it?ll appear distorted. Also, when it comes to editing functions, IDPhotoStudio only includes the option to apply sepia or monochrome color filters. We would have preferred if it included tools like a red-eye remover, cropping or contrasting, which are much more useful for improving the quality of pictures. IDPhotoStudio doesn't even include an undo feature, meaning that if you accidentally set your image to greyscale when you'd prefer it in color, you'll need to start over.

If you have a good mug shot of yourself and want to quickly print out a set of passport sized photos, IDPhotoStudio will probably suit you. However, the lack of advanced editing features means you?ll never really be guaranteed with a high quality image of yourself.

Recent changes

• Bug fixes

Pros

• Auto-set photo size
• US, Canada and France ID photo sizes
• Print from 1 to 15 photos

Cons

• Almost no photo editing capabilities
• Doesn?t respect aspect ratio

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Download DVDFab HD Decrypter 8.1.9.0 Free

Download DVDFab HD Decrypter 8.1.9.0 Free

DVDFab is an all-in-one DVD ripping/decrypting/burning software. In just one or two steps, you can copy DVDs to DVDR/PSP and even iPod. For such a powerful package, it only requires 1.3MB of your harddrive, so it's not bulky like similar packages.

DVD protection is advancing at an ever increasing rate but unfortunately for the manufacturers, so are the ripping programs. If you?ve ever had problems copying one of your favorite DVDs then DVDFab could be what you?ve been looking for. It has proved popular a hit with thousands of Softonic users so far and there seems little prospect of its popularity waning.

The DVDFab conversion process couldn?t be easier. There are 5 DVD to DVD copy modes available - Full Disc, Main Movie, Split, Customize and Clone. In Full Disc mode, all movies, menus and trailers are copied to a DVD in one click. In Main Movie mode, only the movie is copied with your specified audio. In Split mode, you can copy a DVD-9 onto two DVD-5 discs but also preserve the original menus on both discs. According to the DVDFab developers, this rare feature is ideal for TV series on DVD.

DVDFab's handy Customize mode allows you to personalize your DVDs by recording such things as only your favorite scenes, removing adverts or selecting only certain audio tracks. Finally, Clone allows you to make exact 1:1 bit-to-bit copies or even copy games disks such as PS2 DVD?s. There is also a DVD to Mobile option so you can watch your favorite films on your iPod or other handheld device. Formats available on DVDFab include MPEG-4, DivX, XVID and Mp4.

DVDFab is a tough cookie ? even disks that refuse to be copied with other programs can usually be cracked. The customize option allows you to get rid of files that stand in your way and just rip the actual movie. It can also help in recovering scratched or dirty disks that don?t play properly in your DVD player anymore. Ripping speed is remarkably fast with DVDFab - depending on the size of disk, you can record a new one in less than 10 minutes, although the average time is around 30 minutes.

One of the minor drawbacks to DVDFab is that the heavy processing power needed to rip a disk often results in crashes. This will be less of a problem on more powerful machines but on machines with old processors, using DVDFab may become impractical. Many user forums are however full of praise for DVDFab claiming that it can rip more disks and, what's more, faster than comparable products such as DVD Shrink or ShrinkTo5.

Everybody will appreciate the simplicity and power of DVDFab, a rip-roaring DVD ripper..

Recent changes

• Updated A/V codecs.
  
• New: Updated language files.
  
• New: Many minor changes and improvements.

Pros

• Simple interface
• Can copy most formats
• Burns new DVDs quickly

Cons

• Can freeze up your PC occasionally
• Some users report a reoccurring ?Error while loading VOB file...?

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Download Rising PC Doctor 6.0.5.45 Free

Download Rising PC Doctor 6.0.5.45 Free

Rising PC Doctor includes a handful of tools, all especially designed to scan, analyze, optimize and fix your computer.

Rising PC Doctor features a nicely designed interface with different areas to organize all the included utilities, depending on their aim and usage. However these menus are not that useful, as they change from one category to another simply by hovering your mouse over it. This means you'll be constantly switching categories, unless you're really careful when moving your mouse.

The utilities featured in Rising PC Doctor are quite varied: you'll find trojan and spyware scanners, system repairing tools, start up managers, file shredders and a lot more. The only problem is that you don't really know if they're local or online tools, and whether they really make a difference ? especially in the case of spyware and Trojans. I also missed having some sort of preferences menu to tweak Rising PC Doctor's functionality.

Rising PC Doctor includes an interesting bunch of analysis and optimization tools, but the program is not easy to manage and lacks configuration settings.

Pros

• Many varied tools
• Nice interface design

Cons

• Menus are not usable
• No configuration options

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Download Koyote Free Video Converter 3.1.0.0 Free

Download Koyote Free Video Converter 3.1.0.0 Free

It's great to have a portable multimedia device such as a PSP, an iPod or a Zune to watch movies on the go. The problem comes when you need to convert those videos from the PC to a suitable format so that you can watch those videos while commuting or traveling.

Koyote Free Video Converter can help you handle this issue in a very simple way. Far from complicated, bloated converting tools, this easy app lets you convert videos in a snap. You can choose between a wide range of formats, including those which are used in all popular portable devices. Available formats are presented as profiles with set preferences, but you can easily tweak them to suit your preferences.

Koyote Free Video Converter includes a small video window, but sadly it's only intended to watch video frames as the conversion process is working. It would have been nice to be able to use it also as video player to preview the contents of the movie before converting it.

With Koyote Free Video Converter you can easily convert videos to a variety of formats, including those suitable for portable devices.

Koyote Free Video Converter supports the following formats

Import: AVI, DIVX, MOV, MP4, FLV, 3GP, WMV, ASF, MKV, VOB, MPEG, MPG, M1V
Export: 3G2, 3GP, ASF, MP3, AVI, DVD, FLV, MP4 (iPod, iPhone, PSP, Zune), MPEG1, MPEG2, WMV

Notes

The installation process includes the Dealio Toolbar, which you can choose NOT to install.

Review last updated: 20/07/12

Pros

• Supports many different formats
• Format profiles can be tweaked
• Very easy to use

Cons

• No video preview (only while converting)

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Download PerfectAntivirus 2012 Free

Download PerfectAntivirus 2012 Free

PerfectAntivirus is an antivirus program that scans your computer for viruses and spyware.

These days, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a backup antivirus program, or even to explore lesser known alternatives. Despite its boastful name, PerfectAntivirus may not be as well known in the sphere of popular antivirus programs used to ensure your PC's security. It's well worth a look as a second precautionary measure, or even to try out if you're dissatisfied with your current antivirus.

PerfectAntivirus has a nicely designed interface that makes it easy to navigate between screens. Some of the features aren't all that intuitive on first look though. Fortunately, PerfectAntivirus has helpful advice pop-ups you can enable by clicking on a grey and white question mark on the bottom right of the interface. This will allow more question marks to appear next to each different feature. Just run your mouse over each one to get a small, helpful pop-up description of the task it performs.

In addition, PerfectAntivirus also scans for viruses and spyware while it initially installs, which is pretty nice for those who don't like to sit through a lengthy installation process, and then another long virus scan. PerfectAntivirus might force you to uninstall programs like Microsoft Security Essentials though, before letting you complete its own installation.

PerfectAntivirus also doesn't offer a whole lot by way of advanced features. With a colored status circle front and center at the top of its interface, it's certainly an easy to use program for people who might be new to navigating an antivirus tool of its kind.

For a second opinion on the security status of your machine, or as an alternative to more popular programs, PerfectAntivirus is work a try.

Review last updated: 24/07/12

Pros

• Scans your system during install
• Nice, easy to use interface
• Choose the aggressiveness level of antivirus scans
• Optional help popups available

Cons

• Few advanced features
• Requires you to uninstall some other antivirus programs

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Download Focus Booster 1.2 Free

Download Focus Booster 1.2 Free

Focus Booster is a simple app that helps encourage time management for all of your tasks.

Based on the Pomodoro Technique, which breaks up tasks into periods of work of 25 minute intervals (also known as "pomodoros"), Focus Booster is a super simple and lightweight app that runs on Adobe Air. It's essentially just a customizable timer. For the ultimate procrastinators though, this might be just the kick in the rear you need to get those annoyingly numerous tasks done.

Focus Booster's timer is quite simple and sleek looking, on a black timeline with a green progress bar that gradually progresses as time passes. It's essentially just a stopwatch, although the developer says it's a more visual way of being able to keep track of time you're spending on specific tasks.

Click on the small 'i' on the right side of the interface, and you can customize Focus Booster's session and break time length. You can also disable the ticking sound if that's driving you a little bonkers. For many users though, the ticking will help remind them that they're on the clock.

Focus Booster is a gentle nudge wrapped into a lightweight little app that'll help you keep on track with your tasks.

Notes

Focus Booster requires Adobe Air to run.

Pros

• Lightweight
• Allows you to configure break points
• Ticking sound can be disabled

Cons

• Could end up distracting more than focusing

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Download GoodSync 9.2.6.2 Free

Download GoodSync 9.2.6.2 Free

Back-up software has gone through something of a boom of late. With the huge increases in storage, more and more of us are on the look-out for reliable, stable file protection. GoodSync is such a program - it offers fast, automated back up, synchronisation and restore between multiple devices - all in a relatively simple and easy-to-use environment.

Upon first launching GoodSync, you're immediately prompted to select source and destination folders (essentially, your original file folder and the new one you'd like to use as a backup location). The destination folder in GoodSync could be on the same computer, on an iPod, a network drive or any other external storage device. We tested GoodSync with a network drive and found it exceptionally fast.

Additionally, GoodSync's automation feature does exactly what you'd hope for: automatic synchronisation and backup with a raft of configuration options. If, like me, you're backing up important work documents to a network drive, you can easily pick how often this job should be done, to do it just on shutdown, or to allow the task scheduler to handle the job.

You can choose either to back up an entire folder (or folder system) or just specific files with GoodSync. This, along with GoodSync's effective duplicate controls, means that for a simple tool, this program offers you a highly customisable back up and sync solution, enough to offer any user true peace of mind.

A reliable and effective back up solution. Highly recommended.

Recent changes

• Fix offline activation, it was not working.
  
• Sync: fix delete file on Windows XP does not reset read-only attribute.
  
• Sync: fix copy folder mod time of empty folders.
  
• Sync: Do not try to make state file writable if it does not exist.
  
• Gsync: fix Gsync with temp job was returning -1 on success, not 0.
  
• GS Server: fix reconnect on timeout sequence, so that Server does not lose original root.
  
• GS client-server: fix file owner is sometimes not set by Server.
  
• SkyDrive: stop using "^." folder prefix as it no longer workson the server.
  
• Browse dialog: if user change sync folder, turn off all auto options, to avoid bad auto syncs.
  
• Browse Dialog: major rewrite of internals, fixed number of bugs.
  
• GoodSync Explorer: major rewrite of internals, fix a lot of bugs.

Review last updated: 18/06/12

Pros

• Fast
• Easy to use
• Good level of customisability
• Automation feature

Cons

• No templates included

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