Chase and Sam

Welcome to the Home Page of Chase Thompson and Sam Knowles. We're tech journalists, web designers and computer security consultants based in Birmingham Alabama. You can hear us weekly on WAPI 1070 AM in Birmingham (11:00 am) and also see us on TV (Thursday night, 9:55pm) hosting Tech Check on WBRC6 - the local Fox affiliate.

Freeware

Every week, you can find great downloads on this page. We feature freeware, open source software, and any high quality (and malware free) software download we can find. Regular show listeners like Uncle Monster and Tollie often contribute to this page.

VLC Media Player, and other downloads from Uncle Monster

This week brings a gaggle of free media
players. The latest version of VLC and
several more small footprint players from
around the world.

[8~{} Uncle Monster
==============================

==

VLC media player 0.9.3

Home:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Download:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/VLC_media_player_d4674.html

VLC media player - the cross-platform media
player and streaming server

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia
player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1,
MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as
DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It
can also be used as a server to stream in unicast
or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
=================================

1by1 The Directory Player 1.65

Home:
http://mpesch3.de1.cc/1by1.html

Download:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4344.html

Tired of handling playlists?
1by1 is a small, fast and handy audio
player which is not only small: it provides
a smart and versatile environment to handle
your file collection and listen to your tracks
with no need for playlists or databases.

Features

* Directory Player: directly plays your folder contents
* Full Resume play: remembers last track and position
* Supported decoders: ACM (mp3), mpglib (mp2, mp3)
* Winamp input plugin support (ogg, wav, cd..)
* Gapless play · simple crossfading · Audio enhancer
* Folder tree file navigation · Directory finder: plays a whole drive
* File utils: copy, move, rename while play, delete, date change
* Cue sheet support · Playlist support · Favorites · Big title display
* Very small size · Low resource usage · portable
* Folder compare utility
=================================

XMPlay 3.4.2

http://www.un4seen.com/

http://support.xmplay.com/

XMPlay is an audio player, supporting the
OGG / MP3 / MP2 / MP1 / WMA / WAV /
CDA / MO3 / IT / XM / S3M / MTM / MOD /
UMX audio formats, and PLS / M3U / ASX /
WAX playlists. A load more formats are also
supported via plugins. When XMPlay was first
released in 1998, only the XM format was
supported, hence the name “XMPlay”.
=================================

AIMP v2.11

http://www.aimp.ru/index.php?do=static&page=player_en

http://www.aimp.ru/index.php?do=cat&category=aimp

# Good functionality and friendly user interface
# 18-sliders equalizer and build-in sound effects
Reverb, Flanger, Chorus, Pitch, Tempo, Echo, Speed
# 32-bit sound processing
for crystal clear sound
# Works with few playlists
Listern one, work with other
# Plug-Ins support
You can add new utils or extend already exists
and connect some winamp plugins: Input, Gen, DSP
# Autoshutdown manager
# Internet-Radio
Listern and Capture!

Also - check out Charles Thompson, a Birmingham Securities Lawyer

Internet TiVo, Network Help, Free Painting tool, cross platform Thesaurus / Dictionary

This week brings some really good free
software. One is a free Internet TV app
that I’ve probably sent in before but here
it is again. One is software that may bring
out the artist in you, another is a real Dude
that likes networks and the last is software
that eye yooz awl th tyme cuz eye caynt
spel sumtymes.

[8~{} Uncle Monster
==============================

==

Miro 1.2.7

http://www.getmiro.com/

What is Miro?

Quite simply, Miro is a free application for
channels of internet video (also known as
video podcasts and video rss). Miro is designed
to be easy to use and to give you an elegant
fullscreen viewing experience.

There are thousands of free internet video channels
that you can watch. You’ll be able to download all
the videos that each channel offers and when new
ones are released, Miro will grab them automatically.

Unlike tiny videos on websites like YouTube, Miro
videos are usually very high quality and look great
when watched full screen. Since Miro downloads
videos completely before you watch, your videos will
never skip or stutter while they are playing.
================================

Artweaver 0.5.3

http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?en_version

Artweaver is a simple Freeware program
for creative painting, i.e. Artweaver offers
you all artistic effects which you need for
your work.

You can create sketches from photos and
experiment with a wide range of brushes.
The brush simulation is thereby so realistic
as possible.
================================

The Dude 3.0 RC3

Home Page:
http://www.mikrotik.com/thedude.php

Alternate Download:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download5130.html

The Dude network monitor is a new application
by MikroTik which can dramatically improve the
way you manage your network environment. It
will automatically scan all devices within specified
subnets, draw and layout a map of your networks,
monitor services of your devices and alert you in
case some service has problems.
===============================

WordWeb 5.51

http://wordweb.info/free/

WORDWEB FREE* VERSION
WordWeb is a one-click English thesaurus
and dictionary for Windows that can look up
words in almost any program. It works off-line,
but can also look up words in web references
such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia. Features
of the free version include:

Definitions and synonyms
Proper nouns
Related words
Pronunciations

150 000 root words
120 000 synonym sets
Look up words in almost any program

Format Factory, cdrtfe, and ChunkIt,

This week brings some unique software apps..
One is a new way to search the web, another
is a front end to some very cool CD creating
and recording tools, links to the various tools
are on the site. I’ve also included a link to a
really neat app called FormatFactory that does
all sorts of multimedia stuff.

[8~{} Uncle Monster
==============================

======

ChunkIt

http://www.tigerlogic.com/ChunkIt/

Discover an innovative new way to surf the Web.
With a single click, ChunkIt! provides x-ray vision
into any Web page and its embedded links to extract
the valuable “chunks” of information that really
matter.
====================================

cdrtfe 1.3.2

http://cdrtfe.sourceforge.net/cdrtfe/index_en.html

cdrtfe is a Win32 front end for some functions of
Jörg Schilling’s cdrtools. With VCDImager VideoCDs
can be created. Furthermore, cdrtfe supports the basic
functions of the Mode2CDMaker which makes it possible
to create CDs that can contain about 13% more data as
usual (Mode 2 Form 2: 738 MiByte instead of 650 MiByte,
795 MiByte instead of 700 MiByte).
=====================================

FormatFactory V1.48

http://www.formatoz.com/

FormatFactory’s Feature:
1 support converting all popular video,audio,picture formats
to others.
2 Repair damaged video and audio file.
3 Reducing Multimedia file size.
4 Support iphone,ipod multimedia file formats.
5 Picture converting supports Zoom,Rotate/Flip,tags.
6 DVD Ripper.
7 Supports 30 languages

Monitoring programs, HWMonitor, Perfmonitor, Pc Wizard, and CPU-Z

This week brings four free hardware
monitoring, information, diagnostic
and benchmarking apps for all you
geeks out there. The main site is:
http://www.cpuid.com/

[8~{} Uncle Monster
==========================

CPU-Z

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

CPU-Z is a freeware that gathers information
on some of the main devices of your system.
===========================

PC WIZARD

http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php

PC WIZARD 2008 is a powerful utility designed
especially for detection of hardware, but also some
more analysis. It’s able to identify a large scale of
system components and supports the latest
technologies and standards. This tool is periodically
updated (usually once per month) in order to provide
most accurate results.
============================

PerfMonitor

http://www.cpuid.com/perfmonitor.php

PerfMonitor is a processor performance monitoring tool.
It allows to track the frequency of 4 events choosen in a
set of model-specific list. PerfMonitor can be used to
identify the performance bottlenecks of a system, or to
monitor a program for cache-miss rate or mis-predicted
branches. But PerfMonitor can also be used as a
hardware-level CPU comparison tool, comparing the key
parameters of different CPUs runnning the same benchmark.
=============================

HWMonitor

http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

HWMonitor is a hardware monitoring program that reads
PC systems main health sensors : voltages, temperatures,
fans speed. The program handles the most common sensor
chips, like ITE(R) IT87 series, most Winbond(R) ICs, and others.
In addition, it can read modern CPUs on-die core thermal
sensors, as well has hard drives temperature via S.M.A.R.T,
and video card GPU temperature. Special hardware monitors
such as abit(R) uGuru and Gigabyte(R) ODIN™ power supplies
serie are supported too.

Free video editor and converter, plus portable defragger…(From Uncle Monster)

This week I’m sending links to a free
video editor, a free video converter
and a free portable defrag application.

[8~{} Uncle Monster
==============================

=

Video Edit Master V1.8

http://software.tutorialsroom.com/video-edit-master/

A free video editor of any AVI (Divx, Xvid..etc)
and MPEG video files with no quality loss.
Publisher: Hazem Osman
Size: 5.21MB
Release Date: 21-8-2008
License: Free for non-commercial use.

Features:
Video Edit Master is a free video editor including
these features:
* Cutting and joining video files that have the
same encoding, resolution and frame rate easily
and fast without re-encoding.
* Removing commercials from video files very fast.
* Capturing video frames as images.
* A cool user friendly GUI.
* A preview to help you cut and join files precisely.
* Final video will have the same quality of the original
files.
Note:
* You must have the proper codecs installed on you
system, most of the codecs are freely available on
The Internet.
===============================

Pazera Free FLV to AVI Converter 1.1

http://www.pazera-software.com/products/flv-to-avi-converter/

Convert Flash Video files (FLV, SWF) to AVI
or MPEG. FLV to AVI, FLV to MPEG,
YouTube FLV to AVI

Pazera Free FLV to AVI Converter is the free
video converter which converts Flash Video files
(FLV, SWF) into AVI or MPEG. The files can
be played with any video player. FLV files are
commonly used in the Internet by such services
as YouTube or Google Video
===============================

JkDefrag Portable

http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/jkdefrag_portable

JkDefrag Portable is an easy to use disk
defragmenter and optimizer packaged as a
portable app so you can fix-up hard drives on
the go. It has all the same great features of
JkDefrag including being very easy to use, fast,
with low overhead. JkDefrag Portable also includes
an easy to use GUI to give you more control while
still keeping everything simple. You can place it on
your USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a
CD and use it on any computer, without leaving
any personal information behind.
Features:
* Fast operation
* Lightweight
* 64-bit support
* Can defragment very full hard disks
* Can defragment very large files
* Custom made GUI for ease of use
* Allows the selection of any combination of drives
* Displays fragmentation percentage after analyzing
* Disabled flash media by default to discourage users
* Ability to run from a user account by prompting for
an admin user name and password

Uncle Monster’s Downloads for 08-16-08 burn, rip, and edit tags!

This week I’m sending links to
three free applications from a
commercial software company.
A free CD/DVD burner, a free
CD ripper and a free tag editio.

[8~{} Uncle Monster
==============================

Totally Free Burner

http://www.dandans.com/TotallyFreeBurner.htm

Burn Audio CD using mp3, wma, ogg and wav files
Burn VideoCD from Mpeg1 VCD files
Burn Data CD/DVD ISO9960 and Joliet (Multisession)
Burn Data CD/DVD UDF
Burn Video DVD from existing DVD files
Burn CD/DVD from BIN/ISO image directly

FEATURES
Support all current hardware interfaces
(IDE/SCSI/USB/1394/SATA)
Burn Multi-Session or Disc-at-Once mode
to ALL supported media formats
Support UDF/ISO9660/Joliet Bridged file
systems (any combination)
Support UNICODE for multi-byte languages
On-the-fly burning for all image types
(no staging to hard drive first)
Create Bootable data discs or images
Auto-verification of data images
Automatic selection of burn modes for
Disc-at-Once operations (no special device
knowledge required)
==============================

Totally Free CD Ripper

http://www.dandans.com/TotallyFreeCDRipper.htm

Totally Free CD Ripper converts audio CDs to MP3,
Ogg, Wav, Ape, FLAC directly. It supports multiple
CD drives and audio CD auto-detecting.
==============================

Totally Free Tag Editor

http://www.dandans.com/TotallyFreeTagEditor.htm

Totally Free Tag Editor is a cute tool to editing audio tag.
This tool supports MP3, MP2, Wav, WMA, Ogg and
MP+ audio formats. Please note if the file is MPEG file
(MP3 or MP2), there are two tag versions: ID3v1 and ID3v2.

Updated Open VPN, Windows Explorer Alt., and Interesting Web Browser

This week brings some more interesting
free software for your enjoyment. An update
to OpenVPN for secure browsing, a Windows
Explorer replacement and and interesting
open source Web browser.

[8~{} Uncle Monster
==============================

======

OpenVPN 2.1_rc9

http://openvpn.net/

OpenVPN is a full-featured open source SSL
VPN solution that accommodates a wide range
of configurations, including remote access,
site-to-site VPNs, Wi-Fi security, and
enterprise-scale remote access solutions with
load balancing, failover, and fine-grained
access-controls. Starting with the fundamental
premise that complexity is the enemy of security,
OpenVPN offers a cost-effective, lightweight
alternative to other VPN technologies that is
well-targeted for the SME and enterprise markets.
====================================

Explorer++ - Version Alpha 2

http://www.explorerplusplus.com/home

http://www.explorerplusplus.com/download

Explorer++ is a free file manager for Windows.
Available on Windows XP and above, it features
the same familiar interface as Windows Explorer,
while introducing several enhancements and
improvements for a much richer file browsing
experience.
Feature list:
- Browse both real and virtual folders.
- Tabbed browsing for easy management of multiple
folders.
- Display window shows previews of images as
they are selected.
- Easy-to-remember keyboard shortcuts for quick
navigation.
- Customizable user interface.
- Full drag-and-drop support with other applications,
including Windows Explorer.
- Advanced file operations such as merging and
splitting supported.
====================================

K-Meleon 1.5

http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/

K-Meleon is an extremely fast, customizable,
lightweight web browser for the Win32 (Windows)
platform based on the Gecko layout engine
(the rendering engine of Mozilla). K-Meleon is free,
open source software released under the GNU
General Public License.