This is a good audio player.

But it's not THAT good. Why its one of the highest rated, if not the highest, escapes me.

Its easy to use, has a nice interface, and has a reasonable feature set. With a 4.7 rating (as of 6/28/08) I expected to be blown away. I mean, everybody's anachronistic darling, Foobar, is a 4.6. Winamp a 4.2, which this is based on. Since samplings follow a bell-shaped curve, a 4.7 is WAY higher than a 4.2. So I expected this player to be WAY gooder. I mean WAY better. I don't think it is. I can't discern that it does anything Winamp doesn't. And Winamp does some things this one doesn't:

When I first fired it up and loaded some songs into I found that the song titles (determined from the tags) displayed were too wide to display in the playlist. It would show the first part of the name (which were all the same) but not the end of the name, that is the part of the name that would actually help me determine which song was which in the playlist. In Winamp, no problem: resize the playlist. In AIMP, resize the playlist, or NOT. I had to set the playlist names to scroll to see them (a cool feature). The problem with that is it would only scroll the name of a single selected song. You couldn't just look at the list and see what songs were loaded.

Certainly not a killer problem. Plus AIMP is a heck of a nice piece of software for free. But a 4.7? Not in my book.

This is so weird.

I needed to mirror a Web site, and so I search for software that does that. I find HTTrack. I figure I'll read the two existing reviews to make sure I'm not downloading a complete lemon, and I'm the only one who has left a review!

It's like that Twilight Zone episode where that guy is all alone in the city. Am I the only one alive? The HTTrack author must be because the version has incremented. Could it be just me and him? I haven't been outside in a while. Maybe nobody is left!

Well, regardless, I just used HTTrack to mirror a Web site. Some educational site that had information, almost like a book but in HTML format, about UNIX file-systems as it relates to disk administration. And No, I am not a geek. Anyways, HTTrack went and mirrored that portion of that site successfully, quickly, and easily on my hard-drive. Configuration of HTTrack was simple. I perused the copied site and everything seems to be in order.

Why can't more software be like HTTrack? Software that just works, as advertised, without crashing, without weird interface issues, or spyware, or politics, at the astounding price of free.

I know. You all thought I'd died, or stopped computing entirely to lead a pastoral existence devoid of all technology. I wish. No, Its worse than ever. I just moved over to Linux after I was disgusted with Vista where almost all of the software is "free." It's no heaven, but at least we aren't paying for our pain.

Wow!

A 5 out of 5. A perfect score. This application must be, well, perfect. It not only performs as advertised, but it does it crash free, beautifully, providing significant unexpected extra utility all for free.

So I go to load the application. I need an unattended installation (w/AHCI drivers) of XP Pro X64. I'm running Vista because its convenient, not because I actually like it or anything like that. The very first thing the application does is bomb out with an error message indicating only "XP" "2000" and "2003" are supported. Presumably it's complaining about the host O.S., AS IF, that actually had anything to do with the intended O.S. installation. I mean, who cares what the host O.S. is so long as the program can run under it. Last I checked there was little to unattended installations that copying a bunch of files and adding a few instructional text scripts. Certainly not rocket-science. Certainly Vista can copy files and make text files.

I guess that just isn't enough. You have to actually RUNNING the same O.S. as the target installation. I mean you have to already be THERE, running the target O.S., in style. I don't want to rain on anybody's parade, but if I were already running the target O.S., in style, I'd need the unattended instllation that much less. Duh.

Now I know, "unattended installations" are primarilly the domain of system administrators or PC installers with lots of computers. Yeah, right. That's why the leading unattended installation Web site out there, MSFN.org, is bereft of end-users because there's so many system administrators there that there's no room for them.

Yeah.

Or not.

Wow. A perfect 5.0. Up to this point this application rated a "perfect 5.0" by all users. I suspect there may be a little ballot-box stuffing going on here.

A perfect 5.0 Video Hunter aint.

It is handy. I typed in something to search for and it diligently went to youtube, google, & milliyet searching for videos. It found many. So far it found 140 with my keyword and it hasn't stopped yet. I can't stop it, because even though it has a "go search" button, it doesn't have a "stop search" button. Or a way to configure it to only find so many, or search for so long. In fact it has zero configuration settings.

So it found these 140 videos. It would not, however, play them. Not even one of them.

So, while it is a nice concept, the execution of programming that concept is so horribly bereft of skill that the rating of this program has been rigged.

This is a handy little program.

It allows you to do "snapshots" of your registry, your drive, or both to detect changes in files or registry keys. It also allows real-time monitoring.

It is not perfect, however. When using the real-time registry monitor, an error popped up that seemed pretty tame, but in reality it was so severe it crashed my system. I'd tell you what the exact error was, but I'm afraid of crashing it again.

HD Tune smokes!

It is one of the more accurate hard-drive benchmarking utilities out there. When you throw in its segment leading price of "free," you've got yourself an indispensable utility.

In addition to benchmarking it'll report on the drives current status, temperature, and even has a more than handy bad-sector disk scanner.

Smokin'!

"Well that friggin' dog don't hunt."

I saw the announcement for Windows Live OneCare and figured I'd give it a try. Its release was timed to coincide with Vista's, so why not.

I'm running a corporate copy of Vista x64, and when I tried to install the application after downloadiing, it bombed saying that my operating system wasn't supported, that I needed to be running Vista or XP.

Okay... I am running Vista. In fact I just installed it so its about as virgin fresh as you can get, unencumbered by other software's negative impact on the O.S. Presumably the problem here is that when Microsoft's OneCare checks for a compatible operating system it can't actually discern the right operating system from the wrong one.

This opens up a whole slew of ramifications. If Microsoft's programming is so bad (see Vista's UAC for an example of "bad") that they can't even tell which O.S. the application is trying to be installed on, and its a Microsoft O.S., then I've got to question just how good OneCare is going to be. I mean, I'm going to trust it find viruses when it can't even find the Operating System? I'm gong with a "no" as the answer to that question.

These Microsoft guys must be burnt out. I'm just not getting the sense that there's any paradigm-shifting concepts coming out of Redmond lately. I guess after you're the richest guy in the world, or you work for the richest guy in the world, everything is too blasse to actually be paid attention to.

First off, something isn't "very unique." Uniqueness is a binary situation. Something is either unique, or not unique. Unique means "one of a kind." You don't say "very one of a kind."

Secondly, what in the heck is this thing? Its a frankenstein monster of video player, photo viewer, system information applet, and I don't know what else. It installs (or tries to install) all kinds of scary things and sniffs around your data files like its looking for something.

Assuming for the moment that it isn't malware, what is the logic behind such a beast? Is there some issue this was meant to solve? Like my dire need to view videos and while using the same application to query my processor type? What would be the point of that? I don't generally watch a movie and suddenly think "gee, I wonder what kind of processor I have. I better check real quick. Oh, look, ho handy, a processor checker right here in the video player. "

The interface is extremely busy and unpleasant. I'm curious as to what language or tool was used to code such mess, because it seems like it was the product of some kind of automated tool that the user just picked every function available to put into one application.

So while not difficult to use, this is one application where the whole is less than the sum of the parts.

This is quite a capable little extraction utility. It doesn't have a lot of bells and whisltes, but boy, it seems to support more different archive types than any archiving utility I've ever used. I mean, if you've got an archive just sick this thing on it!

It is like the "pitbull" of archiving utilities. Of course, sometimes old Rover goes rabid and has to be put down. It's all part of the circule of life.

So, as good as Universal Extractor is, it's pitbull like tendencies cause it to chew everything up. It chewed up my shoes, chewed through the fence, and it seems to think EVERYTHING IS AN ARCHIVE. I mean, every file with an extension within spitting distance of an archive's normal extension is fair game, and this thing goes, gets your files in its vice-like jaws, and shakes 'till its dead.

So its a good little program, just make sure you keep it on a short leash.

This is simply an extraordinary .ISO burning utility.

I've used it in the past, and its always worked exceptionally. I decided to post some remarks after trying a far more complete, but far less capable .ISO burning application, and also because the "Nero Express" that came with my latest DVD drive does not support any .ISO burning!

If you need to burn .ISO images, forget everything but ImgBurn.

PC Inspector File Recovery (or PCI) is the best file recovery freeware application there is. It is better than many payware applications, but generally isn't quite as good as some of the payware recovery heavy hitters out there.

If you need something cheap, but more importantly you need it quick (no trip to the local software house or wasted time finding a credit card), PCI is your best bet.

Older versions had a tendency to crash (lock up) if the application found a lot of files to recover, but the kinks seem to be worked out in this version.

Download, recover, relax. Repeat as necessary.

SoftPerfect File Recovery is Perfect.

Perfectly aweful.

This waste of hard-drive space did nothing. It found no files to recover. Other file recovery applications found varying numbers in varying condition, but they all found something. Some more than others. The only one that failed to recover anything was SoftPerfect File Recovery.

The perfect answer to SoftPerfect is the "delete" key.

On the plus side, it is pretty and easy to use. Now if only it would do something they'd have a winner.

WOW!

Rated a 3.9 out of 4 with quite a few votes? This must be the best media player in the world! I have to download it!

And so I did. And used it.

It is a good player. It played stuff. It didn't crash. So far, so good.

But a 3.9? For 3.9 I want some features. Heck, I want a lot of features! I also want library management and a great playlist. I want easy control over brightness, contrast, and my filters, plus I want post-processing support.

I got the last requirement, it'll do post-processing. I didn't get the others. Oh, it has a playlist, but it won't tell you information on the files in the list, like duration. Even WMP has that.

So MPlayer is quite a good player. It is not a 3.9 good player.

Didn't you hate it when your grade-school teacher would tell your parents that you had "so much potential."

Really that was coded speak for "he's just not doing that good."

This application has so much POTENTIAL!

There. I've said it. It looks so impressive every iterative version I run, and each time there's just some little "gotcha" that gets in the way of using the program. Sometimes its a little interface issue, or the inability to do a critical function related to deleting certain duplicates.

This time its error handling. I got an error, something about an invalid handle, and probably not DupKiller's fault, probably something from the OS Disk I/O sub-system, but that error crashed DupKiller and it was unable to recover, rendering it useless for the assigned task.

The guys that write this are SO CLOSE to having a killer DupKiller. I hope they continue programming, because it'll be a great little application once it lives up to its "potential."

This is a great little .AVI editor and processor.

It's great because it has a host of useful features, because it is easy to use with a nice graphical interface, and because its free.

It is also a speedy little application and performs without hiccup.

I've added it to my video editing portfolio.

This is kind of a neat application.

Spy on some of the debug information the system is passing around internally. I don't know what those applications are trying to say to each other, because when I check the logs I find no corresponding entries, but maybe this stuff means something to somebody smarter than me. I notice my virus scanner keeps suggesting its doing something with IP port blocking, but there are no corresponding log of this activity. Curious.

Also of particular note is that I'm running it on Microsoft Vista without a hitch.

This will show you the drive filters loaded before or after the system driver, so that's good.

If you are looking for a single-purpose application performing this function, great. This'll work.

Of course, many other system programs, like SIW for example, will do the same thing and a whole lot more.

So its good it doesn't crash. It's good it does what it says. Its just that doing what it says is kind of mundane, at least for me.

Generally I use SIW or or Everest or SiSoft Sandra or one of the other system tools that's been around for a while when I test/investigate hardware or software. Winaudit had a pretty high score, so I thught I'd give it a try.

It is different, but not better than the packages above. I would say a couple of areas it really shines in are its software, software licensing, and installed software capabilities. It also listed ports applications were listening on. Both handy.

Where it does not shine are in intricate hardware details. It lacks the detailed diagnostics the other packages mentioned provide.

So if you're looking for a free package that does a fair-good job of generating hardware information and that does a good job of software auditing, this is a good package.

If you're looking for details hardware auditing, I'd suggest a different diagnostic program.

Wow.

Who are Gretech USA and why didi they make such a great player? For free yet?

This is an excellent player. GOM claims its the "most advanced player" out there. While I do think Kplayer and Zoom player are probably still more advanced, GOM's inclusion of a plethora of built-in CODECs, that play video beautifully and without the CODEC problems that plague most other players, make this the player to use if you're only going to use one player.

Why Microsoft still refuses to give users control over WMP 11 filter usage and other critical settings is mind-boggling. While WMP is better than many playrs, I'd use GOM instead of it without hesitation.

The question remains: who are the people that made GOM and why did they do it for free?

What a great tool to have.

I can't tell you how many times a file copy or move has aborted because of filenames that are too long, let alone the problem the application is ostensibly written for: burning CDs.

This tool isn't fancy, or pretty, but its single-minded dedication to fixing this problem, when other tools can't, is reason enough to add it to your permanent arsenal of utilities.

I have.

This duplicate cleaner looked promising. Especially considering the lack of good freeware duplicate cleaning applications. I find this phenomenon surprising given the relative simplicity of checking MD5 values and putting matches into a database which users could then use to delete files.

All was great, and then "memory error, out of memory" burped from the application and it died, groaning as it went down.

I have 2GB. I've used other duplicate file finders. This one seems to have a coding error.

Unbelievable.

I have been looking for a Network monitoring application like this for a long time.

What really makes this thing rate "EXCELLENT" by all who've rated it is its network discovery ability. I know of payware applications costing $100s of dollars that don't do half as good a job as "The Dude." And professional network discovery is expensive.

This little application beautifuly fills a void in the network application freeware world and sets a new standard for network discovery applications.

This is one of the best file renamers I've ever used. It is so feature rich I doubt there is anything it can't do when it comes to renaming files.

It installs without error, executives without worry, quickly & efficiently. All software (including commercial payware) should work so well.

I had a specific situation where I had generically named files nested deep in generically named directories, but the base directory had a unique name that I wanted to name these deeply nested files to. No other renamer could cope with this odd situation, but Bulk Rename Utility could and did. All 75,000 files.

Excellent job coding this gem.

I had a window poping up, but I didn't know from which application. I don't like to click the "OK" button on strange and unknown windows for fear I'm launching a virus, and so I wanted to know what application owned that window.

Karen's Window Watcher fit the bill perfectly. It installed without a hitch, was easy to use, and provided the information I sought.

But that kind of goes without saying, as everything Karen produces is the paradigm of great freeware.

Wow. This is a neat little tool.

Basically, you have a debug window for system activity. File activity, logons, security impersionations, etc. all displayed in real-time.

Two niggles: 1. the application says it will report syslog information, however it doesn't seem to receive syslog from my network devices. 2. It would be nice if the reporting contained more detail than it does, like what process did something instead of just the PID.

Wow. We're up to version 9 already.

I guess I'm old fashioned.

I remember back in the days when Windows 2.0 just came out. It wasn't grapical, it didn't multitask, and you didn't have a mouse or any multimedia. But it sure was better than 1.0, which really didn't do much of anything. Then Windows 3.0 came out. What a difference. Mouse, graphical, task-switching, multimedia, built-in paint. It sure was a big leap over 2.0

I also remember genning Netware file servers. Boy, Netware 3.0 sure was a big leap over Netware 2.0 sure was a humongous leap over 1.0.

Back in the good old days when a version changed on software it was a big deal. It meant the software changed. A lot. Minor revisions warranted a change after the dot, like 3.1 was a little different than 3.0, etc.

Now we have ACDSee 9.0. Is it a huge leap over 8.0? No. Is it a very small incremental, almost imperceptible change? Much closer.

Actually, having gone through 9.0, the only apprecable change I can detect is the addition of "selective browsing," which is basically a way of defining a temporary subset of photos. Is it handy? I'm not 100% sold, but it seems like it might be. All the other stuff that ACDSee brags about, the filters, etc. can be done in 8.0. But now they're stuck in their own little area so they seem easier to utilize. Barely.

Some other features seem to have been removed, however. Most notably many of the editing functions.

So 9 is a little different than 8, but it sure isn't like the old days when a revision change actually meant something.

This utility has a few handy networking features. Nothing you can't find in other software, but handy nonetheless.

Two notable problems: Firstly: THIS IS NOT FREEWARE. It is a trail version.
Secondly: IT CRASHES QUICKLY.

If you're having WMI trouble (as evidenced by entries to that effect in your log files, like wbemcore.log) then this tool might be fore you.

The tool purportedly can fix problems and has numerous command-line switches. None of which worked for me: command-line switches didn't necessarilly oprate as specified.

What the tool excels at is providing status information on WMI. More status information than you thought possible. More status information than you really want.

Buried iin the multi-MB output log from WMIDiag might be some useful information that might lead you in the direction of something that might give you a hint on how to fix your problem.

So, yes, WMIDiag does diagnose, and may help you repair your WMI. Just be prepared to wade through many lines of diagnostic output manually to glean clues to repair.

Sweet!

This virtual CD/DVD ROM drive works perfectly.

It installs without a hitch, runs without any issues and It supports many different CD/DVD-ROM binary files (ISO, BIN, etc.).

No need for Alcohol 120% with MagicDisc around!

Wow, this application sure is expensive for such a narrow feature set. I guess all that money they get goes into development to make THE best duplicate file finder around.

Or not.

The interface can best be described as "mediocre." Unfortunately that's the high point of program. It starts at mediocre and goes down hill rapidly. Eventually you're smack dab in the middle of completely horrible, cursing yourself for wasting the time to download and then try to actually use it.

At least I didn't pay for it first. That was smart.