AlternativeTo Recommends Other Software

Last week Download Squad dug up a real gem when they found a website called AlternativeTo. This website lists out a lot of really popular applications like Photoshop, Nero, Dreamweaver, and the various Microsoft Office products. Then for each of them it provides alternatives (both free and commercial) that users can choose from.

The whole site uses a voting system to determine what applications are the most popular. What I like is that there are various ways to filter results. By that I mean you can actually have it only show free or open source applications that are alternatives to, for example, Photoshop. So if you’re not looking to spend any money this can really save you some time from trying to hunt down the apps yourself. Plus you can filter according to operating system.

It will be interesting to see if this site really ends up taking off. If it gains some traction it could become a valuable source of information for both consumers and developers… because this would provide developers with a way to promote their apps against that of their competition.
AlternativeTo Homepage

Magic Memory Optimizer 8.1.1.242 Portable

Download:

Magic Memory Optimizer

Info of Magic Memory Optimizer:

Magic Memory Optimizer is designed to tackle difficult but crucial problems of memory management. Memory is the most precious resource in your computer; when it becomes low, your computer will slow down severely or crash. Windows doesn't handle your memory properly by itself. Over time, no matter how much memory you have, Windows will slowly lose memory, bringing you to a critical state. Magic Memory Optimizer solves these problems by reclaiming lost memory for your programs.

Magic Memory Optimizer
* Improves System response Time.
* Defrag memory in the background
* Reclaim lost memory for your programs
* Monitor your system and automatically optimize it when needed without interrupting your work
* Display how much memory you have in real time
* Show current amount of memory occupied by all running processes
* Automatically compress or release memory when free memory falls below specified value
* Add the process you want to clean up or compress into the Black List.
* Add the process you do not want to clean up or compress into the White List.
* Specify desired memory amount to free up or reclaim

What's new in latest version?
1. Improved the interface of process manager;
2. Reduced the CPU load.

The Ultimate Troubleshooter 4.86

Download:

The_Ultimate_Troubleshooter_4.86.rar

Info of The Ultimate Troubleshooter 4.86 :

The Ultimate Troubleshooter offers full-fledged diagnosis of system processes, evaluating each one and tagging those that are suspect or known to be troublesome. It will help rid your system of malware, clashing processes, and processes that slow your system down. It provides detailed advice and simple tools to ensure system stability. It is indispensable for those who require absolute stability on their systems.

A staggering 65% of problems which a PC encounters, whether in business or at home, are not caused by hardware problems, they are not caused by viruses, they are not caused by spam; they are caused by programs running in the background. This program will help you manage, diagnose, troubleshoot the various tasks, services and startup programs on your PC. Especially recommended for the lesser experienced users since great care are given in explaining what the various applications does and how it interacts with your system (also tells you if you need it or not).

Changes in 4.86:
* Latest Tasks, Services, and Startups descriptions and recommendations. 24-April-2009. (134 new entries, 1 revised entry)
* Map your Network. Minor enhancements to the "Map your Network" Utility.
* Tuning now implemented for Vista too.
* Minor enhancements to the Email Unidentified Tasks function.
* Internal changes in preparation for Windows 7.

I can't send calendar invites or meeting responses from my Exchange account in Entourage

Cause: This is a known issue with Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.3 Update. The issue occurs only when an Entourage identity is configured with more than one e-mail account, such as POP or IMAP, in conjunction with the Exchange account.

Solution: Download the Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.4 Update from Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.4 Update on the Microsoft Web site.

The Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.4 Update fixes the calendar issue in versions of Microsoft Entourage that were updated with the Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.3 Update.

A very fast web proxy

I always use this web proxy. It is really good!

Visit:
http://www.unblockedproxy.net/

Banner Maker Pro 7.0.5.1

Download:
Banner.Maker.Pro.v7.0.5.1.rar

Introduction of Banner Maker:

Banner Maker Pro is software that quickly (and easily!) allows you to create web-based banner ads, web buttons, web headers, animated gifs, logos, image ads and other web graphics. It's not just for banners. It's an animated banner ad Maker, button Maker, and logo Maker all in one -and it's just $39.99 for unlimited banner making. By using a wizard-like interface, Banner Maker Pro allows you to easily create professional looking banners, buttons, and graphics for web pages in just minutes. Simply follow the tabs at the top of the program to go step-by-step in the image making process. When you have completed the image, just save it as a GIF or JPEG and add it to your website. create an animated banner or button in under 5 minutes! No graphics expertise needed.

Benefits of using Banner Maker Pro
• Banner Maker Pro is the easiest way to Make web graphics. You can create an animated banner in just 5 minutes with no graphic skills.
• More customizable than other online banner and button makers.
• Create any sized image from 80 x 15 blog buttons to web headers that stretch across the top of a web page.
• Add any image, photo, or logo. All added images can be resized and blended using transparency.
• Over 60 different one-step animations. Create your banner, choose your animation and save. It's that easy.
• More text effects than any online banner maker - add borders and three types of shadows (sharp, diffuse & glow). Change the character spacing and transparency. Set the text at an angle. Use any font on your computer. Set the text at an angle or wrap it around a circle. Unicode text is supported and all text uses anti-aliasing for clean and sharp looking characters.

Well!

FontExplorer X Pro 2.

Get more infomation to http://www.fontexplorerx.com/

FontExplorer X Pro 2.0.1 is the most advanced, feature-complete font-management tool I've ever seen--and I've used almost all of them. It's as if the developers asked hundreds of designers and prepress professionals what they wanted, and then delivered everything on the list. But that's not to say it's bloated with features--in its default setup, FontExplorer X is straightforward and easy to use. But when you need to customize it, you'll find hundreds of ways to do so.

FontExplorer X comes in two versions: FontExplorer X Pro, a $79 standalone font manager; and FontExplorer X Server, which uses FontExplorer X Pro as a front-end client. (From April 2006 through December 2007, Linotype offered a much simpler FontExplorer X version for free.) This review primarily focuses on FontExplorer X Pro, but will cover the Server version as well. (Note that pricing for the server version varies based on the number of seats licensed, number of fonts licensed, duration of the contract, and other issues.)

Interface

The program's interface will be familiar to anyone who has used iTunes: it has font sets on the left, a font list on the right, type samples at the bottom, and details in the lower left-hand corner about any selected font. The top toolbar gives users access to common functions and may be customized to include your favorite features. You can even apply colored labels to any font.

In fact, almost every feature is customizable, from the details displayed in the window to exactly how you want the program to behave when you add, remove, activate, or deactivate fonts.

Adding fonts

Adding fonts is as simple as dragging them onto the FontExplorer X window. You can choose whether the program copies the fonts into its own Archive folder or moves them (thus deleting the original files). You can also leave the font files in place on your hard drive and let the program simply point to them. You may also purchase fonts from within FontExplorer X in a process very similar to using the iTunes Store.

But the impressive thing about FontExplorer X is the level of control you have over how imported fonts are treated.

Sets

Creating and adding fonts to sets is simple, and smart sets provide a real-time collection of all the fonts that contain specific characteristics.

One welcome feature is Application Sets, which can activate certain fonts when a specific application is launched, and then optionally deactivate them when the application quits. Another is the Font Detector, available under the File menu. It can identify fonts used in many kinds of documents, including RTF, PDF, EPS, SVG, Adobe InDesign CS2/CS3/CS4, and Apple Pages and Keynote. It can then create a new set from those fonts, activate them, or even let you purchase them if they're not already in your library.

Display

When you double-click a font name, a window opens that provides all the information about that font--its manufacturer, version number, and even details about your use of it.

It also has a unique character viewer that shows every character the font includes; when you select one, it appears on a grid that indicates its baseline and side bearings.

The Unicode tab lists all the character sets available in a particular font--Latin or other language sets, number forms, dingbats, superscripts and subscripts, and alternate glyphs, for example. There's also a detailed Preview pane that shows a sample of the font in your choice of color, with or without built-in kerning or extended ligatures applied, and with your choice of tracking applied. And hard-core font geeks can even see details about how the font designer assigned kerning pairs, so you'll know how two specific letters will fit next to each other with kerning turned on or off in your page-layout application.

You can drag samples from a sample pane to the desktop, where they will be saved as images in PDF, GIF, TIF, JPG, or PNG format, either as separate image files or as one big image file. There is no way to print font specimen pages from within FontExplorer X, but if you save the previews in PDF format, the resulting files are resolution-independent for printing on any printer.

(Image Caption: True font geeks can even select two characters and see their positions with kerning turned on and off.)

Auto-activation

You can tell FontExplorer X to intercept font requests from any or all applications, and then either activate them automatically or not in almost any combination.

It also ships with auto-activation plug-ins for QuarkXPress ( Macworld rated 3.5 out of 5 mice ) 6.5, 7, and 8; and for Adobe InDesign ( Macworld rated 4.5 out of 5 mice ), Illustrator ( Macworld rated 4 out of 5 mice ) CS through CS4, and Photoshop ( Macworld rated 4 out of 5 mice ) CS3 and CS4.

One of my favorite features is that it keeps track of which fonts each application has requested for activation. That makes it much easier to figure out which fonts to keep activated all the time.

Administrator tools

FontExplorer X can export a backup of all your preferences and fonts, and then restore them on your Mac or copy them to another Mac. It can also export your current window configuration, which can then be applied in whole or in part on another Mac. It can even create a Quick Installer of your configuration and fonts to install on other computers. These features make it much easier to set up and support multiple designers in a workgroup, or to give you peace of mind that your carefully crafted font environment can be quickly recreated in an emergency--or on your laptop.

The program has tools to clear your Mac's font caches, optimize the database, and manage plug-ins. The plug-ins manager is especially useful, because if the plug-ins are updated during an overall FontExplorer X update, they can be automatically pushed out to the applications that use them.

Just like other leading font managers, FontExplorer X employs two programs: an invisible engine that activates at log-in to handle activation requests, and the application itself, which lets you manage your fonts and sets.

Server

Organizations with more than a few users will want to employ the server version of FontExplorer X. The server can run on any computer, and is administered through the client program. The server lets you set up users and groups, and assign any combination of privileges to them. If your corporate server has an LDAP directory, it can import all the users and groups from it.

(Image Caption: A power user can choose to see plenty of information; note that the Activation Control area shows which fonts were requested by which applications.)

It installs as a preference pane on your Mac, and simply adds new features to the FontExplorer X client on that Mac. Fonts stored on the server are copied to local computers when activated, but in a form that can't be shared with others; and access time can be limited so as not to run afoul of licensing agreements. This is handy for laptop users who need to work away from the local network.

Font-use licenses are also managed by the server--it requests license information every time a font is added, and will not automatically distribute more copies of the font than you have a license for. (You can override this, if necessary.)

Macworld's buying advice

I am impressed by the speed of FontExplorer X Pro 2.0.1--especially when importing fonts and displaying fonts in WYSIWYG mode. Its feature set reaches far beyond its competitors' in the level of detail it shows users, the level of control it allows when importing fonts and during auto-activation, the tracking of auto-activation requests, the sharing and exporting of configurations, and more. And yet it remains approachable for most users. I recommend it to anyone with more than a casual interest in managing their fonts.