Windows Repair and Tech Support Software

Piriform’s Recuva finds and recovers files that were deleted from your computer’s hard drive, digital camera memory cards and MP3 players.

Description: Piriform makes some great software (including ccleaner) and I have used it on many computers. I’ve never had anything from Piriform crash, freeze, or act unreliably. Recuva has an interface that is simple to use. All you have to do is use the wizard that first shows up when you open the program.

Compatibility: Windows 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP and XP 64, 2003, Vista 32 and 64

Necessary Info: Here’s how you use it:

1. Download and install Recuva on your computer.
2. Open the program and at the first screen click “Next”.
3. Choose the type of files you want to recover and click “Next”.
4. Choose where you want to look for the missing files and click “Next”.
5. Click “Next”. It will now start scanning in 2 stages.
6. When it has completed the scan, you will be presented with the files that can be recovered.
7. Click in the check-box of the files that you want to recover and click “Recover”.
8. It will now ask you where you want to recover the file to.You should use another drive to recover the files to because if you write them to the same drive, you could rewrite over some of the files that you want to recover.
9. Choose your location and click “Ok”. Recuva will now restore your files to the location that you specified.

To go backwards just a bit… Once you have the list of files, you can sort the files by name, path (the file’s original location), when it was last modified, the file’s size or it’s state (how likely it is to be fully recovered). This last one, the file’s state, is extremely important. You can easily see how likely you are to get your file back. Recuva has  4 “State” listings, Unrecoverable, Very Poor, Poor, and Excellent. If you only want to see the files with an excellent chance of recovey, click on “State” and scroll towards the top.

Here are some of Recuva’s features as listed on filehippo.com.

• Easy to use filter for results based on file name/type
• Simple Windows like interface with List and Tree view
• Can be run from a USB thumb drive
• Restores all types of files, office documents, images, video, music, email, anything.
• Supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5 , NTFS + EFS file systems
• Restores files from removable media (SmartMedia, Secure Digital, MemoryStick, Digital cameras, Floppy disks, Jaz Disks, Sony Memory Sticks, Compact Flash cards, Smart Media Cards, Secure Digital Cards, etc.)
• Restores files from external ZIP drives , Firewire and USB Hard drives
• It’s fast, tiny and takes seconds to run!

PROs: It recovers your deleted files, is easy to use and does it for free.

CONs: None in my experience.

Rating:

Recuva: Download free software HERE.

Thanks,
Tim

written by Tim \\ tags: 5 Thumbs-Up, Free Software, Hard Drive, Tech Support Software

EASEUS Partition Manager V2.1 is a very cool, free computer repair tool. It is difficult to find good, free partition software. Well, here it is.

Description: EASEUS Partition Manager allows you to resize and move your Hard Drive partitions which isn’t a huge deal. The fact that Partition Manager is free and it can resize and move partitions from within Windows. That is a big deal..

Free Partition Software

Compatibility - Free version: Windows 2000 and XP
Compatibility - Pay versions: Windows 2000, XP, XP 64, Vista 32 and 64, Server 2003

Necessary Info: This program is only free to home users running Windows XP Home or Pro. If you are a business or run Windows Vista, user you must pay for the program. Sorry but those are the license details.

This program has a nice user interface that is easy to navigate. You click on the partition that you want to resize and click the “Resize/Move” button. In the next window you choose how you want to resize or move the partition.

*Note: If you want to enlarge your C: drive, you will have to reduce the size of your D: drive partition. And be certain to move the D: drive partition to the end of the drive so you don’t have to do that in another action. This program takes some time!

Rating:

Conclusion: It resizes your partitions from within windows and does it well. That is almost unheard of! It worked so well that I actually bought the professional version to use with my Onsite Computer Repair company.

EASEUS Partition Manager: Download free software HERE.

Thanks,
The Free Downloadable Software Fan

written by Tim \\ tags: 5 Thumbs-Up, Computer Repair, Hard Drive, Tech Support Software, Windows 2000, Windows Repair Software, Windows 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

written by Tim \\ tags: 5 Thumbs-Up, Free Software, Themes

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

written by Tim \\ tags: 5 Thumbs-Up, Blogging Tool, Free Software, WordPress Plugin

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

written by Tim \\ tags: 5 Thumbs-Up, Free Software, Open Source, Security, Utility, Windows 2000, Windows Vista, Windows XP