Favorite Files

1. Adobe Reader for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/2008
2. CCleaner
3. DivX for Windows
4. Exact Audio Copy
5. HandBrake for Windows
6. HashTab for Windows
7. ImgBurn
8. iTunes for Windows
9. Java SE Runtime Environment (JRE)
10. Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer
11. Microsoft IntelliPoint (64-bit)
12. Microsoft IntelliType Pro (64-bit)
13. mIRC
14. NewsLeecher
15. nVIDIA ForceWare Drivers for Windows Vista/7 (64-bit)
16. O&O Defrag Professional
17. Pidgin for Windows
18. Sysinternals Suite
19. Tag&Rename
20. Virtual CloneDrive
21. VLC (VideoLAN) for Windows

Recent Posts

1. 
   Review - foobar2000

   0.9.6.9 (Oct 30, 2009)

   love my foobar.. reluctantly tried it, i was a winamp guy since the first betas... but i kept hearing about it over and over.. after so long i had to try it to see why everyone rants about it so much. the default UI looks quite simplistic and haggard... but then you realize, with plugins and things, you can make this player look like anything in the world. i have seen some BA looking custom GUI's for sure. it's lightweight. it's modular (a lot of the extra functionality is optional, via plugins)... a lot like firefox and its plugins. i can't use IE anymore.. not really cause i'm an IE hater... just without my extensions... IE feels so lacking.
   
   so i have only 1 complaint about the foo. it can do everything under the sun from convert between nearly any formats, tagging, totally customizable interface, replay gain, batch processing, the list goes on forever.... but WHERE IS THE ALBUM ART FUNCTIONALITY??? i mean adding it (you can view it fine). also what about adding lyrics? just kinda irritattes me that i can do every single thing from start to finish in foorbar, but then i've got to use tag&rename to embed the artwork and lyrics. (also a highly recommended program.. tag&rename is awesome for tagging). am i missing something? also i'm waiting for the author of the ipod plugin to make things fully cool with itunes9 format and latest firmware. i would LOVE to get rid of itunes... i'm just scared to use the ipod plugin for fear that it might cause corrupted DB or something on it (since i heard they changed up the internal DB/layout of everything in iTunes9, throwing everything off.with most all existing ipod utilities and plugins that previously worked. thanks apple. itunes also freezes and crashes every time i try to do anything with my ipod touch 3rd gen. even though this is a brand new smokin computer. foobar -- less than a second to come up. itunes? less than a second to FREEZE up.
   
   so what about the album art deal? i heard there once was aworking plugin for this, but became incompatible at some point. am i just missing the method to add art to each individual file, or at laet in a batch operation? i could do it with all my folder.jpg's probably.. but thanks to WMP, all my nice high-res album art has been shrunken to 200x200 turd art, even though i told it NOT TO TOUCH my tags or update them in any way.
   
   if you use foobar and win7, make sure you get the win7 plugin that gives you the taskbar popup w/ mini art preview/controls/thumbnail and song progress bar on the docked icon like IE or explorer. excellent addon. waiting for this to be native.. and for god sakes let me embed album art from foobar so I can get rid of extra programs that I only need for one specific function the first lacks (happens all the time with a lot of software). i'll end up having like 3-4 programs installed that do essentially the exact same thing as each other.... except that one feature i really need. that makes me have to depend on 3 programs instead of 1... always like that ;) we need more frequent updates too!.. foobar!! send some new features/improvements outr way!

2. 
   Review - VLC (VideoLAN) for Windows

   1.0.3 (Oct 30, 2009)

   is it possible those of you complain just have crappy computers? with new codecs like h.264 comes higher demand on the processor/bus/video card.
   
   for years i resisted both VLC and foobar2000.... just refused to use them because they just looked 'crappy' and too simplistic like someone 12 year old had put them together... then after hearing so many people talk about them so much all the time, i said screw it... i'll give them a week.
   
   and i'll never go back to winamp or god forbid WMP again. foobar all the way, and same with VLC.
   
   so from an ex-hater to those being all that i need for my a/v playback needs. VLC has all of the ffdshow codecs behind it, and is lightweight.. even interface can be "semi" customizable since 1.0.
   
   you know the only beef I have with VLC? it has so many features and options, that I have no idea how to do half of what that software is capable of. and all the codec options.. trilinear buffered pixel quantization of relative delta frames?! i think i'll just leave that at the default. (yes, i made that up with random words). point is, i'd rather use any software with 1,000 customizable options, rather than a dumbed down, simplistic and featureless media player... WMP? you know why i uninstalled WMP? i could not find a single way to stop it from resizing all of my nice album artwork to 200x200 thumbnails, then turning them into system/hidden files.. even though i had set/unset every option that said JUST DONT DO ANYTHING BUT PLAY MEDIA. don't touch my tags, don't resize and hide my artwork... at least give me the option to stop it! i start WMP up and i see that 'updating media info' as soon as it gets up... and i know it's just sitting there undoing all the hours of work i spent getting my music collection the way i wanted it toi be.
   
   don't get me start on the piece of trash that is iTunes. Winamp is tolerable, as I used that for many years.... but VLC+foobar .... winning combo right there. it gets a 4 for making so many options so freakin mysterious and cryptic, plus it's playlist/media library is pretty crappy and simplistic... but that's why it's my video app, and foobar handles the audio.end.
   
   i can't wait for the future... i want apps that are completely portable and lightweight. i have so many great free utilities that are 10x more effective and efficient than some of the bloated,, costly software.out there.. ... *cough*nero suite*cough*. also for those who don't know, VLC has a portable version at portableapps dot com if that would be useful for some.

3. 
   Review - iTunes for Windows x64

   9.0 (Sep 13, 2009)

   the program we love to hate... but you've got an ipod. i know there's alternatives and plugins for other audio players but somehow tagging and this and that never seem to end up right unless you do it "their way". itunes tags are horribly limited, they need to come up with a standard (still no standard AAC/ALAC tagging convention!) and expand the tag set to include more information. they're just using an MP4 container for their audio. as others mentioned, it says 64 bit, but win7 recognizes it as 32-bit, installs it to the (x86) folder, and even runs it as a 32-bit app... so how is this 64 bit again, apple? just because it'll run on a 64-bit OS doesn't mean it's 64-bit.
   
   they are making small improvements, like adding jumplist support (with two jumps.. to the itunes store! woo hoo!). social support (facebook, .... who cares)... other extra features most people will probably never use... like genius and party mix, etc. oh yeah.. and "home sharing"... this was invented years ago... it's called a shared folder/network share.
   
   and btw.. i would never use this for an audio player. horrible sound. foobar2000 or winamp, or whatever your choice.. but this is not for anyone who actually cares how their music sounds.
   
   so the only reason that i use it.. and most others... is just because they have an ipod and they want full functionality of it.. (firmware updates, etc). uses about 70 megs of memory on startup, that's with 21 CD's in the library and nothing else.
   
   anyway, i was just expecting more out of iTunes 9, and I was expecting an actual 64-bit program when it is advertised as such..
   
   too bad most of their products are great. couldn't live without the ipod, and the itouch and iphone are still some of the best gadgets. apple products are always just excessively priced! 30 dollars for a usb charger? 80 dollars for in-ear buds? 20 dollars for a usb cable to hook it up? come on... can we say rape? let's not get into how much their computers cost.
   
   but that's way past revewing itunes. the opinionated are so opinionated.

4. 
   Review - Virtual CloneDrive

   5.4.3.5 Beta (Aug 14, 2009)

   yeah, great program.. compact, free, just works.
   
   i switched over to this program when daemon tools started becoming bloated and putting in all that ad crap and trying to trick you into installing their stupid toolbar and set this or that as your home page... i don't want that crap... just install the program i downloaded! plus having to reboot every time the SPTD layer or whatever was updated... (i vaguely remember sometimes having to reboot twice, but i could be wrong)
   
   only small cons about Virtual CloneDrive are that it doesn't support as many filetypes as some of the 'other' virtual drives, but does support the main ones (iso, bin, ccd, etc). the other con i can find is that there really is not much that is configurable other than the amount of drives (up to 15 it looks like), whether or not the icon shows in the tray, save recent list or not, and if you want the virtual drive icon/label to show up differently (to differentiate between virtual/real drives).
   
   but i've never had a single problem out of this program and i've been using it for quite a while. glad to see they added 64 bit support, running it now in win7 x64 and not having any problems at all.
   
   will never go back to daemon, as i never mount video games or have the need for copy protection defeating features, etc. if you need those, then maybe something else is for you, but if you want a program that will take care of mounting your common types of images without a hitch.. this is what you want. don't think it even requires a reboot after you install it!

5. 
   Review - WinRAR (32-bit)

   3.90 Beta 5 (Jul 20, 2009)

   In response to the previous post, "emanresU deriseD", there is an option in the settings that says "wait if other winrar copies are active".. you can get to this by choosing "extract to..." from the context menu, or going into the actual program and selecting a rar and hitting "extract to". there under the advanced tab, you will find this option. check it, then hit SAVE on the main tab (to set as default behavior). this will now only extract 1 archive at a time, in effect, queuing extractions if you select multiple rar's and hit 'extract'. hope that helps with that problem for you, but i agree with you completely.. lots of tiny bug fixes that don't seem to affect 99% of users, and no real addition of extra features or anything 'useful' lately, although 64 bit support was a good step.

6. Comment - Six Fixes on Tap for Patch Tuesday

   3.90 Beta 5 (Jul 8, 2007 - 12:48 PM)

   simple. you can do it two ways. if you go into windows update, then expand the update description, there will be a checkbox that says 'don't show this update again', just check that and it will hide it. alternatively, if you are going through the tray icon to install updates, simply uncheck the update you don't want to see anymore, then click OK or whatever and it won't show it again. to show them again, go to windows update, then click 'restore hidden updates' or whatever.

7. Comment - BellSouth, AT&T Merger Moves Forward

   3.90 Beta 5 (Jul 21, 2006 - 2:55 PM)

   i agree.. at least to me the cingular brand name stands out very much in my mind whereas at&t wireless is only a vague memory to me ("i think i remember that company").. i don't even know if AT&T wireless still exists. at least in my area, they'd be doing themselves a disservice by canning the cingular name, lots of people would probably think of it as a fringe cellular provider, at least i would.