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

Sarah Scrafford at Web Design Schools Guide has posted “Top 20 iPhone Apps for Entrepreneurs”. If you have an iPhone you really owe it to yourself to check this out. There are many useful utilities that actually make me wish I had an iPhone instead of a BlackBerry. =)

Patricia Turner at Online University Reviews has posted “Top 20 iPhone Games You’ve Never Heard Of”. Some of them appear that they aren’t quite out yet but they sound fun none the less. And to all you Nine Inch Nails fans out there with an iPhone… There is a game here for you. Enjoy!

Marcelo Emmerich of byte things has posted that he has released a new version of Grazer. Since the post doesn’t say much about Grazer, I will assume that Grazer fans already know what it is.

Free Software Lounge has posted “TVersity Streaming Media Server for Windows”. TVersity can handle almost any media format and streaming protocol whether it is coming from your home network or the Internet including live and on-demand Internet streams. Sounds like Fun!

Mad Kane at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog has posted “Life-Saving, Spam-Fighting WordPress Plugin” which I think all of us that use WordPress could definitely use! I will check this one out as soon as I am done with this post!

The Guru at Satellite TV Guru just posted “Netflix 2 Week Free Trial” which (obviously) tells you how to get a free 2 week trial of Netflix. But the software angle here is that you can watch movies and TV shows online for Free. This is a Trial so please understand that the service will charge you after your 2 weeks have expired.

Fiona King of Masters in Criminal Justice just posted a list that is right up my alley. Her post is on the “100 Best Open Source Security Tools” and it includes monitoring, antivirus, firewall, encryption, remote access and networking tools. Check it out!

written by Tim \\ tags: Free Software

Zone Alarm PRO is Free for 24 hours only!

Zone Alarm Pro Free

Get it NOW because it is only available until 9:00 AM Eastern Time Nov. 19, 2008.

Thanks,
The Free Downloadable Software Fan

written by Tim \\ tags: Free Software, Limited Time Only, Security

CrossLoop is a popular free free program for doing remote computer repair.

Description: CrossLoop is a great way to perform screen sharing for computer training and remote desktop services for computer repair over the internet.

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista and Apple OS X

Necessary Info: CrossLoop is a free software that MAY allow you to get free remote computer repair service. Some of the members do it for fun but others charge for their services. If your friend or neighbor is a computer guru, he will probably do it for free. Just tell him to get the free software. I have been using it for a number of months and I have to say that it really is great free software.

PROs:

• The CrossLoop software is extremely intuitive. The person receiving help gives the person providing help a 12 digit access code and they both click connect. Then after a few confirmations by the person receiving help and they are sharing their screen.
• The features are here and there are still more coming. You can easily transfer files from 1 PC to the other, chat with the other person, and it keeps track of how long your session was.
• The CrossLoop team is constantly working to make CrossLoop better and better. The updates are often on the server side and therefore you don’t have to upgrade your software every time there is a change. But when an upgrade is necessary, they will let you know.
• If you don’t have your own computer Guru, their Marketplace can point you to one that as the skills to solve your specific issue.

CONs:

• On occasion I have had the service become extremely slow and even crash. It is kind of like a cell phone, you are at the mercy of the service provider (the ISP, not CrossLoop) for your connection quality.

Rating:

Conclusion: I have used CrossLoop many times and I highly recommend it to everyone.

CrossLoop: Download free software HERE.

Thanks,
The Free Downloadable Software Fan

written by Tim \\ tags: Computer Repair, Free Software, OS X, Remote Desktop, Speed Up, Tech Support Software, Windows Repair Software, Windows XP

There are many factors that go into making a piece of free software great. Of course, no software is perfect and just the virtue of being free certainly doesn’t do it. If that were the case then the pizza chain with flavored crust and $4.00 large pizzas on Friday would at least be good. Sadly it isn’t. It is the cheapest pizza I’ve ever ordered but that doesn’t make it good. That just leaves it being cheap and bad which is why I haven’t had it since I got out of college. So what if they have flavored crusts? The pizza is still bad and the price doesn’t change that. For the remainder of this article we are going to focus on the necessary virtues of great software and not the fact that it is free.

Does it do what it says? If the creator of a piece of software claims that it does 3 things but you discover that it only does 1 of them, how impressed with it are you going to be? You probably won’t be very impressed at all, especially if the feature you wanted it for is one that it doesn’t perform.

How well does it do what it says? Software must do what it says and do it well. If you need to change a font in your word processor, it has to change to the correct font and not play roulette with what font it will choose. This may seem like a funny example but I’ve seen free software that acts like this. Obviously it doesn’t get a good rating at all.

Is it intuitive? If the software is difficult to use, how long are you going to continue using it? I don’t want to waste my time learning how to use obtuse software and I don’t think you do either. If something is difficult to use, I am going to look for an alternative. Don’t make me hunt through tons of menus to find a main feature that should be on the front page.

Does it have an attractive interface? I spend most of my day sitting in front of computers. I don’t want to feel like I’m staring at penitentiary walls all day and bad interfaces can make me feel that way. I don’t want a drab grey screen in front of me. Give me color! Give me an interface that is laid out logically

Are there appropriate features? I don’t want to have to go out and find another piece of software to pick up where the first left off. A WYSIWYG website editor that can’t resize images is incapable of creating decent websites and you will need to use an external image editor. With each edit you will have to hope that you resized the image to the correct size. Missing this one feature would ruin the website editor. That being said, I also don’t want a website editor that plays MP3s. If a piece of software has too many unrelated features, I start to wonder why they added an MP3 player and what their purpose for it is.

How often is it upgraded? Old Software often works well but with each operating system upgrade it gets closer and closer to being obsolete. If the software isn’t upgraded but you upgrade your computer, there is a chance that the software will no longer work. When you go look for a new version but it doesn’t exist so you now have to find and get used to another piece of software that does the same thing or at least is close. Often you are so used to the software that you’ve been using for a while that you don’t want to change so you don’t upgrade your computer. Don’t let your current configuration be a hindrance to future possibilities. Find software that is being upgraded.

Is it a resource hog? How much RAM or CPU processing power does the software require? If it slows your compute down when you run it, how much good is it? Look for software that is light on process requirements.

From now on, I will be reviewing the software on my blog based upon these criteria. If it passes them, it will get 5 Thumbs up. If not, the rating will suffer accordingly.

Thank you for reading,
The Free Downloadable Software Fan

written by Tim \\ tags: Free Software