Today’s giveaway belongs to the security category – Zemana AntiLogger detects and blocks suspicious behaviour that may compromise the security of your data.
Installation
Installation went smoothly, though you’ll need to restart your computer before Zemana AntiLogger can start working. You’ll need to key in the registration number provided into the program, and verification of the key requires an internet connection.
The expiration date, as you can see from above, was actually stated as 5th March 2010, or valid for a year. According to the website, updates to the program are available during this license period. I suppose the program would continue working beyond the 1 year license period, but updates wouldn’t be possible. I’m not sure what Zemana provides through its updates, though for such behaviour-based programs, updates are not as critical as compared to Anti-Virus software.
Ease of Use
Zemana AntiLogger is more of a “install it and forget it” program, doing its work in the background until it spots some suspicious activity.
The security alerts that come up are clearly written and presented. Not too much jargon is used, which means most users would be able to understand and make the correct decision.
The main program window itself is kept simple and uncluttered. Big buttons let you turn on or off monitoring for specific behaviour, such as key-logging, screen-logging, and modifications to important system files.
Features
I suppose most users or potential users would be most interested in how Zemana AntiLogger measures up in terms of preventing malicious behaviour on your computer. From my own tests, Zemana AntiLogger caught attempts to record keystrokes, monitor the clipboard and add programs to Window’s start up process. Zemana AntiLogger also terminates any programs you choose to block.
Some of the programs which brought up an alert were legitimate programs, but AntiLogger allows you to easily mark them as safe. A nice touch is that the program alerts you if a program marked “safe” tries to do something else which could be malicious. This means you won’t accidentally allow a harmful program to run after approving a seemingly safe activity.
The program keeps a log of all activity monitored by the program – including ones it automatically approves. The window is not resizable though, so you may need to scroll horizontally to view all the details.
One thing I like about Zemana AntiLogger is its small footprint. It took less than 5Mb of memory on my system. Compare it to Chameleon Clock:
Summary
Zemana AntiLogger offers good protection, and is easy to use. The alerts are written using simple language that don’t require too much computer knowledge to understand. It is also light on resources. There are some question marks over the importance of the updates, which end after a year, but for a heuristics-based program, I feel that program updates are less critical.
I feel that Zemana AntiLogger deserves a thumbs up, though it will not (and does not aim to) replace your firewall or anti-virus software. Using it with a good firewall (I’m using Comodo Firewall) and anti-virus software would give your computer excellent protection against threats.
Rating: 4/5
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/zemana-antilogger/
Free Alternatives
ThreatFire – I’ve been using this for a couple of weeks, and I don’t usually get too many alerts. It blocked and deleted some test dll-injectors successfully. There are 5 levels of sensitivity you can set it to. Resource usage is good, taking approximately 7Mb of memory.
Comodo Internet Security – Thanks to tamir for pointing this out. I haven’t got the chance to try out the whole suite, but I’m impressed by their firewall.
Today’s freebie from giveawayoftheday.com is PDF Converter, which converts PDF files to rtf, html, images, swf, and txt files.
Installation
Installation was quick and simple. No additional steps required to register the program.
Ease of Use
PDF Converter makes it a snap to convert a PDF. Simply add some files, choose an output format, and where to save the file, and click the conversion button to start.
The program description states support for drag and drop, but strangely you can drag pdf files onto almost anywhere in the program window - except the pdf file list.
While converting larger PDFs, the window did appear to freeze a bit. I wasn’t able to press the “stop” button. Perhaps a simple progress bar would be an useful addition.
Some of the PDFs I tried failed to convert, and the program didn’t provide a reason why. The program displayed to messages, one after the other, that don’t really make sense when I tried converting a pdf:
Features
PDF Converter exports to rtf, txt, jpg, tiff, gif, png, bmp and swf formats. RTF files created were editable in Microsoft Word. The SWF files created consisted of the individual pages and automatically cycles through the pages. I tried converting a few PDFs to images, but none of them worked.
Do note that the program does not allow you to specify a page range to convert, so you cannot convert only selected pages.
I ran a few PDF files through the program, and the converted file is accurately formatted. You can see a sample of the results below. The original is on top, while the rtf version is below.
I decided to push the program a little more to see how it handles much larger and complicated PDF files. I converted a 263-page pdf and here are the results (again, original pdf on top):
In general, the text formatting is remarkably accurate, though you’ll probably notice the colour difference in the small text box on the right and in the screenshots. Some of the colours appear slightly brighter and more intense in the converted files.
SWF versions fared better in terms of colour accuracy. File sizes were also small. The 7.5Mb, 263-page pdf was converted to a 5.1 Mb SWF.
Summary
For such programs, accuracy is a top priority, and PDF Converter did a good job in this area. Some PDF files failed to convert though, and I couldn't manage to convert any of them to image files. An option to convert only selected pages would be nice.
For its accuracy, PDF Converter gets a thumbs up from me.
Rating: 3.5/ 5
Free Alternatives
Free PDF to Word Doc Converter – Converts only to DOC format. Allows you to select the pages to convert. Accuracy wasn’t as good as PDF Converter’s though.
Some PDF to Word Converter – Allows selection of page ranges to convert. Some accuracy issues also.
PDFtohtml – basic conversions only
Also check out this excellent write up by freewaregenius.com
Today, I take a look at 3 freebies – a note-taking program, a tool to monitor changes to your system, and a useful windows manager.
A new beta of this lightweight note-taking program has just been released early this month. Changes include an silent clipping option, xml import, as well as more powerful options to manage tags.
CintaNotes sits in the tray, until you select some text and press a configurable hotkey to add the selected text as a note. It remembers the website you copied the text from, and you can use the "Browse Link" option to jump to the original source. Browsers supported include Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari 4. Website/ window titles are automatically added, and you can assign tags to notes.
The search function worked well, you can start typing in the window to filter notes.
CintaNotes does not aim to compete with the likes of Evernote, the developers want to keep it light and uncluttered. Having tested previous betas, I’m quite impressed with the progress this program is making.
SpyMe Tools is a system monitor that tracks changes made to your system. Perhaps you would like to know what registry key that “system tweak” is actually editing. It offers a registry and a file/ folder mode, and also includes a real-time registry monitor.
Scanning times are quite fast, though not as fast as Regshot, another free program that helps you find changes made to your system.
Spymetools (via ghacks.net)
Pitaschio is a small program whose interface you won’t need to see often. In fact, I have it running in the background with not even its tray icon displayed. Pitaschio allows you to manage your windows using your mouse, such as minimising them to tray by right-clicking the minimise button, changing their transparency by scrolling your mouse over the title bar, making them appear on top of other windows or rolling them up to leave only the title bar. You can assign different key+mouse combinations to certain actions.
Extras include a smart rename option for Windows XP users that mimics Vista’s renaming behaviour (only the filename part is selected when you press F2), and keyboard/ mouse disablers – handy when you need to clean your keyboard or mouse halfway through work. You can also set the Windows desktop to use small icons, similar to Explorer’s list view.
Continue Reading...Today’s giveaway is Extra Photo Slide Show, which helps you put together photos and music to create video slideshows.
Installation and Registration
I don’t have a Vista machine to test it on, but installation ran smoothly for me. A big annoyance is that the installer changes the homepage of Internet Explorer to the software developer’s website, without asking you for permission. Registration of the program is done by clicking on a small icon to the right of the “Start” button and entering the serial number. The instructions didn’t provide a user name though, but the program accepted any name you enter.
Ease of Use
I didn’t have much trouble creating a simple slideshow. The absence of a help file was not really an issue (the “help” shortcut created in the start menu simply pointed to the developer’s website, on which I can’t find any documentation for this program)
Options on the first tab let you add photos and choose transitions and change timing options. A second tab lets you clip/ crop and add background music. The final tab lets you define the output options.
Adding photos was an easy task, although I wished there is a preview of the transition chosen. The window wasn’t resizable, and this did hinder my ability to view the filenames of my photos. Perhaps a thumbnail view would be a better option than the list view used.
I was a bit confused that nothing happened when I pressed the big Start button. Turns out that I need to press a second start button in the new window that appears in order for the creation process to start.
Features
With the description claiming a total of 142 transition effects, I was eager to try out some of them. I was, honestly speaking, disappointed that most were just variations (e.g. wipe left to right and right to left) of one another. I was also looking for more sophisticated effects but was left disappointed again. There were also some jerkiness in the rendered videos.
Format support is good, with all common picture and audio files supported:
| Picture | BMP, PNG, GIF , JPG, EMF, J2K, PCX, PNG, RAS, TGA, TIFF, WMF |
| Audio | WMA, MP3, WAV, ADPCM, PCM, GSM, OGG, Video files |
The program also allows to use the audio track from video files.
A simple tool allows you to add subtitles to individual photos. You can change the font, size, colour, transparency and location. You can’t however insert multi-line subtitles or add drop shadows.
The program also lets you clip /crop selected parts of audio files. Music files will automatically loop once they end. I tested an OGG file, and it worked without any problems.
You have the choice to create a wmv, avi, mpeg or rm video file. The presets, which include DVD-compatible files, should offer sufficient options for most. An option to burn a DVD directly would be an excellent feature though. I received a few errors that forced the program to exit during the rendering process.
Summary
Extra Photo Slide Show does well when it comes to its ease of use, but suffers slightly in the features department. I had hoped for smoother and more professional looking effects. Today’s giveaway wouldn’t be a bad option if all you want is to create a simple slideshow with background music.
Rating: 3/ 5
Free Alternatives
Picasa 3 – A photo organiser with a simple slideshow maker built-in. Transitional effects are nice, though limited.
Slide Show Movie Maker – Supports only wav files for audio, and not too user friendly. Transition effects appear smooth.
Sometimes, I don’t really have time to write full articles, and that’s why I’m starting a series of “One-Minute Roundups” - articles that take under a minute to read (though much more time for me to research and write). Usually they will feature interesting software and news I gather from my favourite sites. Here’s today’s roundup to kick things off:
This tiny (39,424 bytes!), portable program lets you search through your files and folders. You can filter files based on their attributes and absolute/ relative times. I would still use Everything most of the time though, but this would come in handy for more specific searches.
Nirsoft.com ,via Softpedia
Yet another program to remove invalid registry entries. Scanning was quick, and the entries found seem safe to delete. Automatic backups means restoring changes is a snap. I’ve some problems viewing selected entries in the registry editor though.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/littlecleaner/ , via Lifehacker
Offers behaviour-based threat detection in real-time. I installed it with Comodo Firewall, and have experienced no problems running both at the same time. The program also allows you to perform an on-demand scan for rootkits. Takes up less than 10 Mb of memory running in the background.
Continue Reading...
Today’s program from Giveawayoftheday.com is YouTube Music Downloader, which downloads and converts videos from YouTube into common video and audio formats.
Installation
Installation and registration was smooth, just paste in the code provided and restart the program. After installation, I was directed to the program’s website with a link to download and buy the product. I suppose the software’s producers must have used a trial copy for this giveaway, which explained this “advertisement”.
Ease of Use
The interface was friendly-looking, with big buttons on top. I like the categories list on the left side of the window, which lets you quickly browse through different music genres. Unfortunately, the window wasn’t resizable. Browsing through videos using the Music Browser, I received an error message which went away after I clicked “no”. The error came back when I tried typing in YouTube’s own search field – each letter I typed gave me an error. The built-in search box worked perfectly though.
A button appears on the top right corner of the video page when you load a video. Clicking on this brings up a window allowing you to save the video or convert it into a different format. All downloads will be listed in the Downloading list tab. I wasn’t able to pause or cancel a download in progress, though I suspect that most users won’t really need this feature.
Features
YouTube Music downloader disappoints when it comes to features. A huge minus is the inability to download more than one file at a time. As mentioned, you also can’t pause or cancel a download in progress.
The Drag Zone, a tiny translucent window, lets you drag selected URLs onto it. Doing so will open up the window, giving you options to download and convert the video. It worked in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and in fact most programs (Didn’t work in Opera though - I suspect the reason is the way Opera handles selected text)
YouTube Music Downloader supports most common formats, listed below:
| Video | WMV, MOV, MP4, 3GP, AVI, MPG |
| Audio | MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, AMR |
There were some bugs with the Add New Download window, as you can see from above. I thought that the supported formats should cover the needs of most users. Unfortunately, the bug above may prove frustrating for users. I was able to convert a video successfully to wmv format, however.
From what I can tell, the program downloads the flv version of videos and converts them. This applies even to videos available in higher quality or even HD. An option to download higher-quality mp4 versions of videos and convert them instead would be good.
I’ve previously mentioned FLV Extract, a program that extracts the audio from flv files losslessly as mp3 files - read my short write-up for more info. Do note that YouTube Music Downloader transcodes the videos, and there may thus be a loss of video/ audio quality.
Summary
I find today’s program hard to recommend, taking into account the bugs I encountered and the lack of support for simultaneous downloading of multiple videos. YouTube Music Downloader isn’t too far away from being a good program if these problems are fixed though, let’s hope the developers would make improvements to it (and hopefully release it on giveawayoftheday.com ;) )
Rating: 2.5/ 5
Free Alternatives:
Any Video Converter – Converts lots of formats, downloads and converts videos from YouTube also.
All-In-One Video Bookmarklet + FLV Extract – This is what I use if I need only audio from a video.
An online service + your favourite video conversion program – Clipnabber works well, and I use it together with Any Video Converter
Zamzar.com – Fully online, just download the converted file. You need to provide your email address though.
