Free Software Review

Windows Embedded Theme for XP

I just found this really cool, free Windows theme that I thought you might like to check out. Its called the Windows Embedded Theme and is really easy on the eyes.

Windows Embedded Theme

Necessary Info: The .zip file was scanned for malware and is clean. Installation is easy, just follow these simple steps.

1. Open the “Official_Embedded_Theme.zip” file and copy the contents to your desktop.
2. Open the “Official Embedded Theme for Windows XP and 2003.exe” file and choose the default location.
3. Right-click on the desktop and choose properties.
4. Click on the “Themes” tab at the top of the window.
5. From the “Theme”drop-down menu, choose “Embedded” and click “OK”.

At this point your PC will act a bit strange. Don’t worry, the screen will go grey and flicker a few times but in about 15 seconds to 1 minute, you will have your completely new-looking desktop.

Rating:

Windows Embedded Theme: Download free software HERE.

Thanks,
The Free Downloadable Software Fan

Best Free Blogging Tools

Hello everyone,

Today I am going to do something a little different. Since I am really into blogging and building my blog, I want to help everyone else to create the best and most profitable blog that you can. But I am not going to go step by step on how to build a blog. I want to give you my list of best and most essential blog building tools.  I hope this list is as helpful to you as it has been to me. All of this hinges no the fact that you know how to use WordPress. Feel free to comment where you have questions or suggestions. And to use these tools, you’ll need a hosted WordPress account. Here is a Great WordPress Web Host. They are the ones I use for all 3 of my blogs.

Please note that this list is in no specific order.

1)  WordPress. Here is WordPress in their own words… “WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.” it is the publishing platform that I currently use. I used to use another one but it limited me in what I could do with my site so I switched and I don’t see any reason to ever go back. Download the free software HERE.

Create your own blog. Start by getting your domain name now.

2)  All In One SEO Pack. The All In One SEO Pack is an essential WordPress plugin for doing your own SEO. It allows you to create titles for your blog posts, as well as create descriptions and input the keywords that you want to be ranked for. A great tool that is quite easy to use. Download the free software HERE.

3)  DoFollow. “In case you’re not familiar with the basics, so-called “search engine optimizers” are out there to get their customers’ web sites on the first page of search engine results. And one thing that counts according to Google and its kin is the popularity of web sites, which is measured as the number of links to the web site.” Quoted from Semiologic.com. In essence, WordPress automatically inserts the rel=nofollow attribute. This means that your links and your comment links carry almost no weight with SEO. Fix that easily with the WordPress DoFollow plugin. Download the free software HERE. Yes, free-software-review.com is a DoFollow WordPress blog.  =)

4)  Google Analytics for WordPress. Google Analytics for WordPress is a WordPress plugin that enables Google to track your page and show you how much traffic you’re getting, where it is coming from, what keywords people are finding you for… In short, it tells you how people get to your page so you can optimize it to bring in more of them. Download the free software HERE.

5)  Sociable. Sociable is a WordPress plugin that easily enables you to put links on your blog to all of the popular social bookmarking sites. This includes but certainly isn’t limited to Digg, Del.icio.us, Technorati, Twitter, Mixx, and Google Bookmarks. If you want your readers to tell other people about you, this is the way to do it. Download the free software HERE.

6)  WordPress Automatic Upgrade. When WordPress creates an update to their software, this WordPress plugin will alert you to that fact as well as give you an ultra easy way of upgrading. You simply choose to upgrade and follow the prompts. It will even back up your database and all of your posts. Get it. It will save you a lot of headache. Download the free software HERE.

There it is… My short list of the most important blogging tools. I hope it helps you to get your blog going and making more money.

Rating:

Thanks,
The Free Downloadable Software Fan

Avira Antivir Personal – Download Free Antivirus

Avira AntiVir Personal is (in my humble opinion) the best free antivirus software available. It is what I use on my own PCs.

Description: Avira AntiVir Personal is a free antivirus program. It performs updates every day and catches a higher percentage of viruses than almost any other antivirus program. Just check the latest test results from AV-Test.org at Virus Bulletin.

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP 32 and 64, Vista 32 and 64

Necessary Info: AntiVir Personal is a free antivirus program from German software manufacturer Avira. Avira consistently ranks in the top 2 or 3 in Antivirus comparison tests by AV-Test.org. Check the latest test results. Of course this is the free version of the commercial software and they want you to purchase the full version but the free version is good for at least 1 full year. I haven’t had it for a complete year yet so I am not certain what happens after the year is up but I am sure that they want you to purchase the full version.

PROs: Great antivirus software that scans every file that is opened or saved. It does not slow your PC down nearly as much as McAfee, Norton, AVG, or most of the others. It is quite lean in comparison and catches more viruses. This is a win-win situation! It updates every day to ensure that your virus definitions are as current as they can be. It can be configured to perform a virus scan every day.

CONs: If you want it to perform a virus scan every day, you have to configure it yourself. When the program updates it’s virus signatures it puts a pop-up on your desktop to encourage you to purchase the commercial version of the software. Simply click “OK” and it goes away.

Rating:

Conclusion: Avira AntiVir Personal requires less of your systems resources than most antivirus programs and catches more viruses than most of the competition. Get it. The only reason that I give it 4 thumbs instead of 5 is the pop-up that encourages you to purchase the commercial version.

Avira AntiVir Personal: Download free antivirus software HERE.

Thanks,
The Free Downloadable Software Fan

View PowerPoint PPT or PPS Files for Free

Microsoft’s free PowerPoint Viewer allows you to read the .PPT and .PPS files that your friends and coworkers send you.

Description: A free and downloadable software utility from Microsoft. Shocking isn’t it? They actually have quite a few including Autoruns.

Compatibility – OS: Windows 2000 Service Pack 3, 98 SE, ME, Server 2003, XP
Compatibility – Program: Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, 2002, 2000, 97

Necessary Info: Since not everyone needs to create PowerPoint Files, Microsoft has graciously (lol) allowed us to view them for free. This is a no-frills utility. All it does is allow you to view files. You can’t create them, modify them or even resave them in this program. But it does what it says which is why I give it 4 thumbs.

Rating:

Conclusion: It is a free way to view PowerPoint files. Nothing more, nothing less.

Microsoft’s PowerPoint Viewer: Download free software HERE.

Thanks,
The Free Downloadable Software Fan

We’ll Be At a Blog Carnival

On November 14th, we will be featured in a blog carnival. There will be other free software download and review review blogs posting there for your entertainment and information.

To check out the blog carnival and learn about other free software review blogs just click your way over to Free Utilities Evaluation and Reviews.

Thanks,
The Free Downloadable Software Fan

Free Windows Encryption Software

TrueCrypt is a free encryption software for Windows. And even if they charged for it, I’d recommend it.

Description: Encrypt sensitive data quickly and securely.

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP & Vista, OS X 10.4 & 10.5, Linux – Check Here.

Free Encryption Software

Necessary Info: TrueCrypt is an free open source encryption program that has versions for Windows, OS X and Linux. There is almost no limit to the size of the programs that you can encrypt. Trust me, I had a 4 gigabyte encryption file.  =)

From their own website “TrueCrypt is a software system for establishing and maintaining an on-the-fly-encrypted volume (data storage device). On-the-fly encryption means that data are automatically encrypted or decrypted right before they are loaded or saved, without any user intervention. No data stored on an encrypted volume can be read (decrypted) without using the correct password/keyfile(s) or correct encryption keys. Entire file system is encrypted (e.g., file names, folder names, contents of every file, free space, meta data, etc).”

There is a ton of documentation so I’m not going to cover it all here but do check out their documentation page.

LifeHacker has a great post on how to use truecrypt.

Rating:

Conclusion: TrueCrypt is good free encryption software for windows. Trust me, I use it myself! Don’t forget to use a strong password!

TrueCrypt: Download free software HERE.

The Free Downloadable Software Fan

Free SEO Rank Checker

SEObook’s Rank Checker leaves a lot to be desired even considering the fact that it is a free program.

Description: Check your SEO rank in 3 different search engines.

Compatibility: Firefox 2 and Higher.

Necessary Info: Rank Checker is a plugin for Firefox that advertises that it will check the rank for websites in 3 different search engines. There are a few things that it does well but its main feature is a flop.

It has a nice but relatively basic interface which allows you to input your domain and then input as many keywords or keyword phrases as you would like. You can also save the entire list to check them again later. Nice feature  because no one wants to have to type each and every key word in every time they do a rank check.

Rank Checker’s main function is to check rank for the domains that you specify and it does this with 3 search engines. It seems to check Yahoo well but Google and Windows Live don’t seem to do very well with this program if they show up at all. I have a ranking on the first page of Google with some of the keywords that I checked… And they came up as having no ranking at all. To me that earns it about a 1/3 ranking…

Rating:

Conclusion: It does a good job of checking yahoo so use it for that. But if you want to check your rankings for Google, (doesn’t everyone???) I recommend that you look for another piece of software. Rank Checker can’t do it.

Rank Checker: Download free software HERE.

The Free Downloadable Software Fan

Submit Your Software for Review

If you or your company create free software you can get it reviewed here for free. I ask for nothing in return. I just want to provide people with honest reviews for good free software.

You can email me files or links. Please send all emails to Tim with a title of “Software to Review”. Please put this title on your email so I won’t delete it. Also include your contact info as well as web addresses for your software program and a direct link to download the software directly.

I will get back to you by the end of the next business day to confirm receipt of the email and give you an approximate date that you can expect to see your software reviewed on this blog. Dates given are not set in stone and will vary.

With very few exceptions, I only review Windows software. I will not review any Linux software as I don’t run any Linux systems. I currently will not review any Apple software, though it may be accepted later. I will change this page if and when I start accepting it.

Since I want to be good to my readers, every program and file will be scanned for viruses and spyware. If anything comes up, you will be notified and it will not be reviewed. End of story.

Thank you,
The Free Downloadable Software Fan

Create a System Restore Point

System Restore Point is a small utility to create a system restore point in Windows so that if there is a problem, you can restore your computer to when the restore point was made.

Description: An easy way to create system restore points.

Compatibility: Windows XP.

Necessary Info: When you’re repairing a PC, (especially if it belongs to someone else) it is always a good idea to have a recent system restore point. This so you can revert to it later if there becomes a problem. It does this by taking a snapshot of the computer’s registry. so you can easily revert back to it by booting into safe mode and following the prompts. It doesn’t have the ability to fix anything so please understand that. It just allows you to return to a point when everything worked. And for this program, that is enough.

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Conclusion: If you are a computer repair professional or just like tinkering with computers, get it. This program will help you have a better outcome if things go wrong.

Download free software: System Restore Point HERE.

The Free Downloadable Software Fan

Sociable WordPress Plugin

The Sociable plugin for WordPress is amazing! This is an extremely easy way to add links any social bookmarking sites to each and every post.

Description: A necessary plugin for every WordPress blogger.

Compatibility: WordPress 2.2 and higher

Necessary Info: In a world of complexity, Sociable is beyond simple. If you are a WordPress blogger, you know how some plugins just don’t work the way they are supposed to. Or they require a lot of configuration. Sociable is different. Here’s how:

To install a plugin in WordPress, there are usually a few steps like

1. Download plugin
2. Unzip
3. Upload to your server
4. Activate
5. Configure
6. Check
7. Re-Configure
8. Re-Check

I think you get the picture. With Sociable, written by Joost de Valk, the installation process is just this…

1. Download plugin
2. Unzip
3. Upload to your server
4. Activate
5. Select bookmarking sites you wish to use.
6. You’re done.

You probably see the links to Digg, Del.icio.us, Mixx and Facebook at the bottom of this page. That is a testimony as to how well this worked.

Rating:

Conclusion: If you use WordPress, you need Sociable. Great job Joost!

Download free software HERE.

Thanks,
The Free Downloadable Software Fan