14 DAY TRIAL // I imagine you all had to learn a bit of physics at one point of your life. Remember those unit conversions you had to make? I always hated them. And yet I got to learn them and even if it takes a while to come up with the answer at least it is the right one. Never liked physics and physics never liked me.
Well, sometimes, having a unit calculator or converter may come in really handy. For those of you that are still memorizing all the units and the conversions just like multiplication you should know that there are easier ways to convert a radian angle into minutes and degrees. Or Fahrenheit temperature into Kelvin or Celsius. Or a cubic centimeter into a gallon. Ok, ok, I'll stop. You got the picture, right?
Computers offer automatic conversion solutions and provide accurate results, to the last decimal. If you worry about the money to shell out, don't. Convert is a free software that incorporates the most bizarre units some of you have ever seen. Working with it is equally easy, especially because it doesn't need installation and can run without any problems directly from a memory stick. Simply download it, unzip it to the desired location, and launch the executable. No installation and no fuss, just the plain and straightforward interface of Convert.
It's true that the looks are not at all impressive and don't fit Vista's interface at all. But it works with no problems and this is the greatest advantage. Main application window contains all measurements a normal human being would require and more. The 21 tabs displayed in the main panel cover the same number of systems of measurement plus a custom section where you can input whatever measures you want and convert between them.
Although the interface is un-resizable this is not an impediment in working with the application as users can hide all unnecessary tabs and leave the interface only with those needed. Making the conversions between the different measurements is the easiest task in the world. All you need to do is select the input measure, output one and type in the desired value at the bottom of the screen. The conversion is instant and accurate.
Measurement units included in the software cover everything you would need, from density, distance, energy, flow, force, light, torque, temperature, time, volume, or acceleration to mass, power, concentration, computer, angle, area, speed or pressure. The moment you select the right tab all its units will be displayed in two columns (one for input and one for output).
In some cases, there are measurement units I never thought existed. For instance, you can transform an ounce/gallon into gram/centimeter or a meganewton meter into gram-force centimeter. I know these are not exactly restricted to rocket scientists, but still, it is impressive.
For computers, forget about the regular transformations from byte or bit into kilobyte, kilobit, megs or gigs. These are too simple and it's more interesting to turn a zettabyte or yottabyte into nibbles or petabytes. Unfortunately, the application addresses those that know the meaning of the measures available and offers no additional information on them.
As it is an educational software, it would have been nice for the Help file to have included the definitions of the units available in Convert.
Though you would not think of it judging by its looks, Convert comes with an Options menu designed to help you configure the application to your better judgment and needs. As it is impossible to use Copy function just by selecting output result, you can accomplish the action from Options menu for placing it into the Clipboard and then paste it wherever needed. Also, you can invert selected units.
Preferences dialog brings more functionality to the application by allowing you to set the precision of the decimal point (up to ten decimals), enable scientific notation or showing a warning for negative values for Kelvin (theoretically there are no negative values for Kelvin).
The tabs in the main application window can be hidden according to your wish. As you are not going to work with all measurements at the same time, it is better to make available only those you really need. The interface will no longer seem that crowded and you can see the different systems better.
More than this, if you are not content with the order of the tabs you can move them around to your own liking. Additionally, Convert can display them on a singular line instead of multiple rows. Navigating from one to another is achieved by clicking on the left/right arrows available in the top right hand corner of the application.
The last tab in preferences menu allows full configuration of a custom tab. This is especially important for currency conversions (of course, you would have to type in the rate every day, but the bottom line is that you can input whatever measures you want in there).
Users with a scientific thirst for measuring can quench it easily with Convert. The application is absolutely free and can be taken anywhere on an USB thumb drive as it does not need installation. A simple unzipping of the files and that's it.
The Good
Convert provides 21 measurement systems and instantaneous conversion of the units. The interface is configurable and you can append your own measurement system.
The Bad
There is no help file explaining all the measures available. It would have been nice to have the definitions of all the units and maybe a few examples, too.
Some of the units are not ordered ascending as it should (Time and Computer sections are just two examples).
Users have to go to Options menu in order to copy the result of the conversion to Clipboard.
The Truth
Despite all the baddies, the application does a great job and provides fast and accurate results. It has no portability issues and can be easily transported on a memory stick (unzipped it weighs about one MB).
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
