Latest Posts from Download Squad

Who doesn't love defragmenting? Here at Download Squad, we defragment everything we can get our hands on: hard drives, registries, jigsaw puzzles. Our daily defragment fix can be found here, with Quicksys RegDefrag.

In case you didn't piece it together from the name, RegDefrag will defragment your registry. In layman's terms: the program works to optimize your registry by removing gaps, fragments and wasted space in Windows registry files.

RegDefrag begins by analyzing your system's registry. If your registry is sufficiently fragmented, RegDefrag will give you the option to defragment. Unfortunately, there are no backup options (unless RegDefrag performs them behind the scenes, but we wouldn't count on it), which means you're out of luck should RegDefrag decide to remove or defragment the wrong files.

In our tests, RegDefrag recovered over 3 MB of space, which was about 10% of our computer's registry. Not too shabby.

RegDefrag is free, and compatible with Windows Vista, XP, and the ghosts of Windows past.

Fotosizer is a free batch image resizer for Windows. The tagline for Fotosizer is "batch image resizing made easy," and we couldn't agree more.

In the Fotosizer interface, you have the option to select individual files or entire folder. You can also include sub-folders with a simple click. Once you've selected the images you wish to resize, you can resize them in one of three ways: custom size, using a percentage of the original, or using a preset size.

Set your destination folder, output format, and filename mask, and hit Start. That's all there is to it.

In our tests, Fotosizer needs about a second for every file to be resized. Combine the program's quickness with the time you will save by not having to individually resize all of your images, and you might just have enough extra time in your day to boil an egg, or write a Twitter post. Heck, two Twitter posts, even.

Fotosizer is a free download, and Windows only.

[via gHacks]

Have you always thought that Hallmark greeting cards are too cheesy? Have you wanted to follow in the steps of Mr. Deeds (at least, the Adam Sandler version of Mr. Deeds) and write your own cards? Well, now is your chance...sort of.

Phreetings is a Facebook app that allows you to send a photo and a short greeting to a Facebook friend, a la greeting card style.

As far as Facebook apps go, Phreetings couldn't get any simpler. Type in a keyword at the top of the page to search for photos, and Phreetings displays the results (all photos are from Flickr, and licensed by the Creative Commons license).

Drag the photo you want to send over to the section on the right hand side of the page, then type in a short message below. You can choose an optional color scheme for your greeting as well. When your greeting is ready, hit the send button, enter in the name of the recipient, and your greeting is sent.

All in all, a simple application that helps spread your web 2.0 greetings both near and abroad.

Thanks for the tip, Augustine!

CaTraxx is a music management tool that aims to catalog all of your music, from digital media to CD's, cassettes, and vinyl.

CaTraxx will automatically scan your computer for any supported audio files and import them into its music database. Additionally, you can insert your CD's and CaTraxx will scan and download the audio tracks automatically. The program has a direct connection with the CDDB database; track and album information are instantly downloaded as you import your files.

CaTraxx also functions as a basic jukebox/media player, though iTunes and Windows Media Player would be better options if all you want to do is play your music.

So what good is CaTraxx? In our minds, it's beneficial to think of the program as a database rather than a music collection. So why do you need a database of your music? Well, for example, you might need a database for insurance purposes, in case your beloved vinyl collection is usurped by a thief (or vengeful ex). The database can also keep records of who borrowed pieces from your collection and when they borrowed it, so you never lose track of a CD.

CaTraxx is available as a fully functional trial; after that, it'll set you back $40. In our minds (can we say that twice in a post?), you'd have to be pretty obsessive of your collection to shell out that kind of dough.

[via AppScout]

You've got to hand it to Apple: they listen to their detractors, and listen fast. When they dropped the price of the iPhone soon after its launch, and the responding outcry was fierce, they doled out credits to the Apple Store as an apology. The 10.5.2 update, while fixing many other issues, was also a response to customer complaints about the new Leopard feature Stacks.

The most recent Apple fiasco had to do with pushing Safari for Windows via Apple's Software Update. The sticky wicket was putting Safari in a software update as if it were a necessary update, or an update to a piece of software already installed on your machine. Detractors claimed that amounted at worst to trickery, at best to an unfair advantage in the ongoing browser wars. Frankly, we kind of agreed.

Well, Apple has listened again.

The newly released Apple Software Update now has two panes instead of one: Updates, and the new pane, labeled New Software. This small but significant tweak allows users to easily discern whether a product is an update to an existing piece of software on their machine or a new offering.

Some might say that the change is still not enough. After all, the Safari install is still checked by default. We're also left to wonder, in the intervening time between offense and repentance, how many new Safari "users" can Apple claim?

Camino 1.6 is now out in the wild, and it looks to be the release a lot of people were waiting for. With many new features as well as many updated features, Camino 1.6 is an excellent and compelling alternative to Safari and Firefox on the Mac.

New to Camino 1.6:

• Toolbar Search Improvements: The toolbar search in Camino can now be edited and customized, with the ability to delete, rename, and reorder search engines. Camino also supports OpenSearch plug-ins.
• Streamlined Find Interface: No more Find panel in Camino 1.6. Instead, a simple Find toolbar will appear when you need it at the bottom of the browser window (this feature is very similar to Safari's inline search, though Safari's find toolbar appears on the top).
• Tabbed Browsing Improvements: Camino 1.6 now includes a scrolling tab bar. If more tabs are open than can be displayed in the tab bar, you'll see arrows on the right and left edge that will allow you to scroll through the tabs.
• Integrated Software Update: Using the "Sparkle" framework, Camino now has an auto-update feature.

There are also many improved features in Camino 1.6, including AppleScript support, feed detection, and spell checking.

The big improvement in Camino 1.6 for many users has to be the updated keychain support, which now stores information for multiple accounts in the Keychain. And, as always, Camino will automatically block pop-ups, ads, and animations.

You owe it to yourself to download Camino 1.6 and take it for a test run. It might just be the best browser on the Mac. Agree? Disagree? Spell it out in the comments.

[via Mozilla Links]

Sure, you make fun of the chintzy Time Machine animation when you're out to sushi with your geek friends, but secretly you adore it. When the night is late, and it's just you and your Mac, you turn on Time Machine simply to gaze longingly into its starry goodness.

But don't you wish that you could just get that pesky Finder window out of the way, so you could stare into the full, unadulterated Time Machine backdrop? Well, we've got the next best thing, friend: the Time Machine Screensaver.

The Time Machine Screensaver is a Quartz Composer Movie that is pretty much an exact clone of the Time Machine animation. To install the screensaver, you can drag it onto the Screen Saver window, or put it into your default Screen Saver folder, or copy it to the Screen Saver alias included with the download. Once you see it in your Screen Saver preferences, select the Time Machine Screen Saver, and off you go.

Now, it's just you and the Time Machine. Face to face.

If you want something a little more "Leopard" themed, with the colors from the default Aurora desktop picture, you can download it from the Time Machine Screen Saver discussion forum.

[via Softpedia]

Are you sick of having multiple tabs open at one time because you have numerous items that you want to read or research? The Taboo Firefox extension will help cure your "tabitis" (their term, not ours, so don't hate on it) and minimize the glut of tabs on your tab bar.

Once Taboo is installed, you'll have two new items on your toolbar. When you click the first button, Taboo will take a snapshot of any web page you are on, including session state information (such as the scroll location and any data you've entered into forms), and store it for later. You can do this with as many tabs as you need.

When you want access to one of your saved tabs, click on the other Taboo button, and Taboo will load thumbnails of your saved pages into a new tab. From there, all you need to do is click on a saved page, and it will automatically load, complete with scroll location and any text you may have entered.

The saved pages are kept through browsing sessions and shutdowns, and for as many days as you like. Taboo even has a calendar view of all your saved tabs, if you want to access pages from days or weeks ago. You can also search among your pages using the url or page title as a keyword.

Taboo requires Firefox 2, and isn't yet compatible with the Firefox 3 beta.

Chances are, if you've searched the web for a universal video converter for the Mac, you've come across VisualHub (formerly iSquint). Now, the makers of VisualHub have brought the same conversion magic to audio with AudialHub version 1.0.

AudialHub can easily convert audio files to most any format of your choosing, including AAC, MP3, WMA, AIFF, WAV, Apple Lossless, 3G (cell phones), Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and Audio and MP3 CDs.

AudialHub brings the same simplicity-and optional advanced features-that VisualHub offers. If you want to use AudialHub for quick and dirty conversions, simply drop in some audio files, choose the output format, and hit start. That's it!

If you want more advanced conversion, you can look into the advanced settings, where you can set bitrate and channel, trim the audio file, add tags and comments, etc...

AudialHub also offers a Quick Preview capability, so you can instantly preview compression quality and trim settings before you convert. AudialHub also supports simultaneous conversions in separate queues, each with their own setting.

AudialHub is currently offered with a free trial; after that, it'll cost you $18.81 (you get a $4 discount if you're a current owner of VisualHub). AudialHub requires Mac OS 10.4.11 or later.

[via MacInTouch]

Deluge is an up-and-coming BitTorrent client for Mac, Windows, and Linux that looks strong enough to compete with the likes of Azureus, uTorrent, and Transmission.

Deluge supports the most common P2P features, including encryption, UPnP and NAT-PMP, Mainline DHT, proxy support, and more. The main strengths of Deluge, however, come from its design:

• The program has a clean interface and is easy to look at, which makes for simple and unobtrusive torrent downloading.
• The program was built to be extensible, with a rich plugin collection (many plugins are included in the software already)
• The progam was designed to be lightweight; it doesn't tax your system like other BitTorrent clients.

Best of all, like previously stated, Deluge will run on Mac, Windows, and Linux. If you're willing to give Deluge the old college try, you can download it here – and be sure to report back what you like and don't like about it.

[via Freeware Genius]